“Farewell, my clearly beloved brother John Ridley, of the Waltown, and you my gentle and loving sister Elizabeth, whom, besides the natural league of amity, your tender love which you were said ever to bear towards me above the rest of your brethren, both bind me to love. My mind was to have acknowledged this your loving affection, and to have acquitted it with deeds, and not with words alone. Your daughter Elizabeth I bid farewell, whom I love for the meek and gentle spirit that God hath given her, which is a precious thing in the sight of God. “Farewell, my beloved sister of Unthank, with all your children, nephews, and nieces. Since the departing of my brother Hugh, my mind was to have been unto them instead of their father; but the Lord God must and will be their Father, if they would love and fear him, and live in the trade of his law.” He then goes on to take leave of other kindred more distantly related to him, and to declare the duty which compelled him to lay down his life. He next reviews and defends the acts of Edward’s Reformation, to which he had been a party; laments that the wild boar should have rooted them all up; contrasts the present with the past; and returning once more to his sorrowful leave-taking, “To whom,” says he, with feelings far more to be envied than those of Gibbon or Gray, “to whom, after my kinsfolk, should I offer farewell, before the University of Cambridge, where I have dwelt longer, found more faithful and hearty friends, received more benefits (the benefits of my natural parents only excepted,) than ever I did in mine own native country wherein I was born? “Farewell, therefore, Cambridge, my loving mother and tender nurse! If I should not acknowledge thy manifold benefits, yea, if I should not for thy benefits at least love thee again, truly I were to be counted too ungrateful and unkind. What benefits hadst thou ever, that thou usest to give and bestow upon thy best beloved children, that thou thoughtest too good for me?... First to be scholar, then to be fellow, and after my departure from thee, thou calledst me again to a mastership of a right worshipful college. I thank thee, my loving mother, for all this thy kindness; and I pray God that his laws, and the sincere Gospel of Christ, may ever be truly taught and faithfully learned in thee.