in equitie forget, nor in reason conceale the rare curtesies you
vouchsaft me at Oxford, the friendly offers and great liberalitie since
(above my hope and desert) continued at _London_, wherewith you have
fast bound me to beare a dutiful & grateful observance towards you while
I live, & to honour that mind from which as from a spring al your
friendships & goodnes hath flowed: And therefore to give you some paune
and certaine assurance of a thankfull minde, and my professed devotion I
have consecrated these my slender _endevours_ wholy to your _delight_,
which shall stand for an image and monument of your worthines to
posteritie. And though they serve to pleasure and profite manie, yet
shall my selfe reape pleasure, also if they please you well, under whose
name and cognisance they shall goe abroad and seeke their fortunes. How
the world will entertaine them I know not, or what acceptance your
credit may adde to their basenes I am yet uncertaine; but this I dare
vaunt without sparke of vaine-glory that I have given you a taste of the
best Italian fruites, the Thuscane Garden could affoorde; but if the
pallate of some ale or beere mouths be out of taste that they cannot
taste them, let them sporte but not spue. The moone keeps her course for
all the dogges barking. I have for these fruites ransackt and rifled all
the gardens of fame throughout Italie (and they are the Hesperides) if
translated they do prosper as they flourished upon their native stock,
or eate them & they will be sweete, or set them & they will adorne your
orchyards.

The maiden-head of my industrie I yeelded to a noble Mecenas (renoumed
Lecester) the honor of England, whom thogh like Hector every miscreant
Mirmidon dare strik being dead, yet sing _Homer_ or _Virgil_, write
friend or foe, of _Troy_, or _Troyes_ issue, that _Hector_ must have his
desert, the General of his Prince, the Paragon of his Peeres, the
watchman of our peace,

"_Non so se miglior Duce o Cavalliero_"

as _Petrarke_ hath in his triumph of fame; and to conclude, the
supporter of his friends, the terror of his foes, and the _Britton_
Patron of the Muses.

"Dardanias light, and Troyans faithfulst hope."

But nor I, nor this place may halfe suffice for his praise, which the
sweetest singer of all our westerns shepheards hath so exquisitely
depainted, that as Achilles by Alexander was counted happy for having
such a rare emblazoner of his magnanimitie, as the Meonian Poet