Epistle Dedicatory

TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS The LORD HENRY HOWARD OF NORFOLK, &c. MY LORD, Have good assurance, that I shall not have need to say much in justification of this Adventure; or to devise Reasons, why I hold myself obliged to address this Volume to your Lordship. I may, I think, presume on the one hand, that notice will be soon taken, that we have here asserted and vindicated our care for the Resuscitation of Instructive Antiquities; for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences; for the diligent Peruslation of the Chief parts of the World; together with some not un-accurate Researches for good Models of Artifice, and for many Excellencies of Nature; (as will appear in the Preface, and in several of the Tracts following thereupon.) And sure I am, that on the other hand it will be consider'd, that Your Lordship as well by your Hereditary Claim, as by your Personal Inclination and Addition is pleased to be very affectionately concern'd in all these Respects; that due Veneration may be given to the Antient and First Inventors; and that Modern Industry be not discouraged, but that all advantages be imported from the remotest Distances of Time and Place, for the benefit of our own Country, and for Posterity. Now from these Considerations I think I may have good hopes, that this my humble Oblation will not be accused of any Incongruity, though it be too mean to testify the devotion I bear and owe to your Lordship. My The Epistle Dedicatory My Lord, we are bound, on all occasions to commemorate the Honour, you have done the Royal Society, by entertaining them in Arundelhouse, as in a Princely Colledge, ever since they remov'd from Gresham; and for endowing them with a rich and uncommon Library; and for your manifold and great merit in the Advancement of Learning: A part of which is recorded in the Archives of Oxford. Your Incomparable Grandfather, the Renowned Earl Marshall of England, and Earl of Arundel and Surrey, was in his time acknowledged the President and Fautor of the Noblest Disciplines, and had the Curiosity and Felicity to collect many of the most considerable Monuments of the Primæval Monarchies, and thereby to enrich this Kingdome with the most Antient Sculptures, and the most Excellent Paintings. And such of these Monuments, as were proper for the Theater of that University, the famous MARMORA ARUNDELIANA, your Bounty hath placed there as in the fittest Seat to succeed in the possession of the Remains of Old Greece and Athens. But because these Glories are too resplendent for the basifullness of my Profe, I shall resign to the Elogy of our late Pindar, who, when the Oxonian Theater was first solemnized, after he had in his Pindaric raptures celebrated the Heroical Vertues of your Most Illustrious Progenitors, Dukes of Norfolk; among other great Attributes, justly appropriated to your Lordship, left us this Memorandum; Clarior emicat Tenebræique demit Historiæ. HENRICUS genuinus Hæres, Majoribus Posterisque partitur Sublimis Columnæ domûs: Largus Influxum biædum, vetatque Antiquitati pandit lumen obscuræ Illis Præteritum deesse, vel hæ Futurum. Conquerors, Emperors, and Crown'd Heads, even when they have performed things truly great and worthy of renown, have sometimes passed over the Stage as in a Dumb Shew, scarcely mention'd in any Authentick History: But the Muses do never forget to consecrate their Votaries, Philosophers; and their own Patrons. And good Letters and Arts are more lasting than Marbles. And they, who receive Life to the best Literature; who restore, and preserve, and excite Arts, and who give a longer duration to the most lasting Monuments; These may justly claim for themselves the fairest and most durable Monument, in the persuasion of, My LORD, Your Lordships Very Humble and Obedient Servant London, Febr.19.1627. Henry Oldenburg Soc. Reg. Secret.