"I haue published heere, Gentlemen, for your mirth and benefit, Greene's Groateswoorth of Wit. With sundry of his pleasant discourses ye haue beene before delighted: But now hath death giuen a period to his pen, onely this happened into my hands which I haue published for your pleasures: Accept it fauourably because it was his last birth, and not least worth, in my poore opinion. But I will cease to praise that which is aboue my conceit, and leaue it selfe to speake for it selfe: and so abide your learned censuring. "Yours, W. W." Then follows another short address, "To the Gentlemen Readers," by Greene himself; and as this edition is so rare, only two copies being known, and the address is short, I transcribe it entire for your insertion: "Gentlemen, The Swan sings melodiously before death, that in all his life time vseth but a iarring sound. _Greene_, though able inough to write, yet deeplyer searched with sicknesse than euer heretofore, sendes you his swanne-like song, for that he feares he shall neuer againe carroll to you woonted loue layes, neuer againe discouer to you youth's pleasures. Howeuer yet sicknesse, riot, incontinence, haue at once shown their extremitie, yet if I recouer, you shall all see more fresh springs then euer sprang from me, directing you how to liue, yet not diswading you from loue. This is the last I haue writ, and I feare me the last I shall write. And how euer I haue beene censured for some of my former bookes, yet, Gentlemen, I protest, they were as I had special information. But passing them, I commend this to your fauourable censures, and like an Embrion without shape, I feare me will bee thrust into the world. If I liue to ende it, it shall be otherwise: if not, yet will I commend it to your courtesies, that you may as wel be acquainted with my repentant death, as you haue lamented my carelesse course of life. But as _Nemo ante obitum felix_, so _Acta exitus probat_: Beseeching therefore to bee deemed hereof as I deserue, I leaue the worke to your liking, and leaue you to your delights." Greene died in September, 1592; and this is curious, as being probably the last thing that ever came from his pen. The work commences on sig. A 4, the other three leaves being occupied with the title and the two addresses. It concludes with Greene's "letter written to his wife," and has not "Greene's Epitaph: Discoursed Dialogue-wise betweene Life and Death," which is in the two later editions. I may here mention that I possess a copy of an extremely rare work relating to Robert Greene, which has only lately become known, viz.: "Greene's Newes both from Heaven and Hell. Prohibited the first for writing of Bookes, and banished out of the last for displaying of Connycatchers. Commended to the Presse by B. R." (Barnabee Rich) 4to. bl. lett. Lond. 1593.