Introduction

It is not long, since the goodlyest graces of the most-noble Commonwealthes vpon Earth, Eloquence in speech, and Ciuility in manners, arriued in these remote parts of the world: it was a happy reuolution of the heauens, and worthy to be chronicled in an English Liuy, when Tibers flowed into the Thames; Athens remoued to London; pure Italy, and fine Greece planted themselues in England; Apollo with his delicate troupe of Muses, forsooke his old mountaines, and riuers; and frequented a new Parnassus, and an other Helicon, nothinge inferiour to the olde, when they were most solemnely haunted of diuine wittes, that taught Rhetoricque to speake with applause, and Poetry to sing with admiration. ¹