In the long preface Torporley, who had entered St Mary’s Hall the year Hariot graduated, and who during his travels abroad had served two years as private secretary or amanuensis to Francis Vieta, the great French Mathematician, but who had since become a disciple of the greater English Mathematician, thus admiringly speaks of his new master, Thomas Hariot: 

Neque enim, per Authorum cunctationem & affectatam ob-scuritatem, fieri potuit, vt in prima huius Artis promulgatione, eidem alicui & inventionis laudem, te erudiendi mercedem deferremus; sed dimicamibus illis, neque de minoribus præmijs quam de imperio Mathematico certantibus; mussantibus vero alijs, & arrectis animis expectantibus, Quis pecori imperitet, quern tot armenta sequantur; non defuit Anglæ & suus Agonista (ornatifimum dico, et in omni eruditionis varietate principemvirum Thomam Hariotum, homine natu ad Artes illustrandas, &, quod illi palmariu erit præstantissimu, ad nubes philofophicas, in quibus multa iam secula caligauit mundus, indubitata; veritatis splendore difcutiendas) qui vetaret, tarn folidz laudis spolia ad exteros Integra deuolui.  Ille enim (etiamdum in pharetra conclufa, quæ pupilla viuacis auicular terebraret, sagitta) ipsam totius Artiseius metam egregia methodo collimauit; expedita vero facilitate patefactam, inter alios amicorum, & mihi quoque tradidit; multisq vitro citroq, iaftatis Quæstionibus, ingenia nostra in abysso huius Artis exercendi causam præbuit.

Of Mr Torporley we shall have more to say further on, as he is particularly mentioned in Hariot’s will.  Meanwhile here is an attempt at a translation of his peculiar Latin in the above extract: 

For indeed by the delays and affected obscurity of authors, it
was impossible, that in the first promulgation of the art, we
should give the praise of invention and the credit of
teaching, to the same individual ; but while they were
quarrelling & contending for no less a prize than the empire
of Mathematics, whilst others were muttering, and waiting with
excited minds to see
Who should rule the flock, whom so many herds should
follow,
our own champion has not been wanting to England.  I mean
Thomas Hariot, a most distinguished man, and one excelling in
all branches of learning :  a man born to illustrate Science,
and, what was his principal distinction, to clear away by the
splendour of undoubted truth those philosophical clouds in
which the world had been involved for so many centuries :  who
did not allow the trophies of substantial praise to be wholly
carried abroad toother nations.  For he (while the arrow, which
was to hit the bull’s-eye, was yet in the quiver) defined by
an admirable method the limits of all that science ; and
showed it to me, amongst others of his friends, explained in
an expeditious and simple manner ; and by proposing various
problems to us, enabled us to exercise our ingenuity in the
profundities of this science.