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To the Reader.
CHancing to ••inde with Esopes Cocke a stone,
Whose worth was more than I knew how to prise:
And knowing, if it should be kept vnknowne,
T 'would many skathe, and pleasure few or none,
I thought it best the same in publike wise
In Print to publish, that impartiall ei••s
Might, reading iudge, and iudging, praise the wight
The which this Triumph ouer Death did w••ite.
And though the same he did at first compose
For ones peculiar consolation,
Yet will it be commodions vnto those,
Which for some friends losse, prooue their owne selfe-foes:
And by extremitie of exclamation,
And their continuate lamentation
Seeme to forget, that they at length must t••ead,
The selfe same path which they did that are dead.
But those as yet whome no friends death doth crosse,
May by example guide their actions so,
That when a tempest comes their Barke to tosse,
Their passions shall not superate their losse:
And eke this Tr••atise doth ech Reader show,
That we our breath, to Death by duet••e owe,
And thereby prooues, much teares are spent in vaine,
When teares can not recall the dead againe.
Yet if perhappes our late sprung sectaries,
Or for a fashion Bible-bearing hypocrites,
Whose hollow hearts doe seeme most holy wise,
Do for the Authors sake the worke despise,
I wish them weigh the words, and not who writes:
But they that leaue what most the soule delights,
Because the Preachers, no Precisian sure,
To reade what Southwell writ will not endure.