button to main menu  Drayton 1622, preface part 2, 1

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preface to part 2, 1:-
preface, part 2
  geography
  history
  poetry

To any that will read it.
WHen I first undertooke this Poeme, or as some very skilfull in this kind, have pleased to tearme it, this Herculean labour. I was by some vertuous friends perswaded, that I should receive much comfort and incouragement therein; and for these Reasons: First, that it was a new, cleere way, never before gone by any; then, that it contained all the Delicacies, Delights, and Rarities of this renowned Isle, interwoven with the Histories of the Britanes, Saxons, Normans, and the later English: And further that there is scarcely any of the Nobilitie, or Gentry of this land, but that he is in some way or other, by his Blood iinteressed therein. But it hath fallen out otherwise; for instead of that comfort, which my noble friends (from the freedome of their Spirits) proposed as my due, I have met with barborous Ignorance, and base Destraction; such a cloud hath the Devill drawne over the Worlds Judgement, whose opinion in a few yeares fallen so farre below all Ballatry, that the Lethargy is incurable; nay some of the Stationers, that had the selling of the first part of this Poeme because it went not so fast away in the Sale, as some of their beastly and abominable Trash, (a shame both to our Language and Nation) have either despightfully left out, or at least carelessely neglected the Epistles to the Readers, and so have cousoned the Buyers with unperfect Bookes; which these that have undertaken the second Part, have beene forced to amend in the first, for the small number that are yet remaining in their hands. And some of our outlandish, unnaturall English, (I know not how other-
wise
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