to
The Right Honourable, my very good Lord,
THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM1
His Grace, Lord High Admiral
of England
Excellent Lord:
Solomon says, A good name is as a precious ointment,2 and I assure myself such will your Grace’s name be with posterity. For your fortune and merit both have been eminent, and you have planted things that are like to last. I do now publish my Essays, which of all my other works have been most current, for that as it seems they come home to men’s business and bosoms. I have enlarged them both in number and weight, so that they are indeed a new work.3 I thought it therefore agreeable, to my affection and obligation to your Grace, to prefix your name before them, both in English and in Latin. For I do conceive that the Latin volume of them (being in the universal language) may last as long as books last.4 My Instauration I dedicated to the King,5 my History of Henry the Seventh (which I have now also translated into Latin) and my portions of Natural History to the Prince:6 and these I dedicate to your Grace, being of the best fruits that by the good increase which God gives to my pen and labours I could yield. God lead your Grace by the hand.
Your Grace’s most obliged and
faithful servant,
Francis St Alban.7