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The Translator to the Reader.
Courteous Reader,
HAving lately left off our Country Schooles, I was not minded to lose that little I had learned; wherefore I ap∣plyed my selfe to peruse some of the best latine authors; and though I sought to better my selfe in the language, yet to digge and labour in the Quarry of choice words, and still to be hewing and squaring out latine phrases, onely I thought too servile, unlesse the matter it selfe also yeelded some sweetnesse and content: which made me walke forth into the pleasant fields of History, in which I found a rare mixture of pleasure and pro∣fit, where the matter it selfe with variety of passages informeth and delighteth the understanding, and the elegant words and delivery teacheth the tongue and pen to expresse. Amongst the rest, I fell upon a moderne master-piece in that kinde, viz. Famia∣nus Strada of the Low-country Warrs, and of all other parts, I was most taken (and not without just reason) with the Siege of Antwerp, contained in the sixth, and part of the seventh booke of his second decade. A compleate History of it selfe, and to