The marrow of history, or, The pilgrimmage of kings and princes truly representing the variety of dangers inhaerent to their crowns, and the lamentable deaths which many of them, and some of the best of them, have undergone : collected, not onely out of the best modern histories, but from all those which have been most famous in the Latine, Greek, or in the Hebrew tongue : shewing, not onely the tragedies of princes at their deaths, but their exploits and sayings in their lives, and by what virtues some of them have flourished in the height of honour, and overcome by what affections, others of them have sunk into the depth of all calamities : a work most delightfull for knowledge, and as profitable for example / collected by Lodowick Lloyd ... ; and corrected and revived by R.C. ...

To the true Lover of all good Lear∣ning, the Truly Honourable CHARLS DIMMOCK, Esquire, &c.

SIR,

I Have here preferred to your observance and protection, a work of great Art, and of greater Industry; you shall find in it a Summary of almost all the Kingdomes and Common-wealths upon the earth, and what were the men of Power, which commanded in them, and also what were as well their Excellencies of Understanding as of Soveraignty; it being a Gift unto great men, who are called unto extra∣ordinary places, to be indued for the

most part with extraordinary abi∣lities.

Here, as from a Turret of Specu∣lation, you may look down upon the Vulgar, and every where behold how near of kin is Misery to Mortality; and raising afterwards your Contemplation higher, you may looke up on those who have been the Potentates and Princes of the Earth, and observe how empty is the Title of Greatnesse, and how vain in the Grave is the Prerogative of Kings; insomuch that if the Dusts of Alexander the Great, and of Bu∣cephalus his Horse, were committed both unto one Urn, I do believe that Aristotle himself could not distin∣guish betwixt them, either by his Phi∣losophy, or his Flattery.

Sir, It it is then easie to be seen that it

is onely Virtue that crowneth the lives of Princes, and after their deaths doth raise them higher then their Py∣ramids; yet in many Examples you may distinctly here observe, that even the best of Kings, and those of them who have been nearest unto Heaven, have often stooped under the greatest Visitations, as the highest Hills are most often checked by the lowdest Thunders.

But others there have been, whose lives by their Lust and Cruelty, have been covered with infamy, or by their Sloth, with silence; as Tertullian speaks of Sardanapalus, that if he had not been famous for his Riot, no man had known him to be a King; therefore those depraved Affections are here described, and by many Examples a∣bundantly illustrated, in the pursuit

of which so many great men and Con∣querours upon Earth have both de∣lighted and perished.

They are produced as a Caution unto all, and the Book may serve as a Mirrour unto the Best, in which they may observe the uncertainty of humane condition in the Pilgrimage of this life: It precisely (Sir) devo∣teth it self to your protection in whose Example, as in a purer Mirror may be read all the Influences of Ho∣nour and of Chivalry; which that you may long live to dispence a∣mongst us, is the dayly prayer of him who is,

(Sir)

Your most humble and most devoted Servant. ROB. CODRINGTON.