“And although I supposed, and at last was assured, even by that Author himself (my very learned and worthy friend) that we should not thrust nor hinder one another any whit at all, though we both went at once in the perambulation of that land, because he had not meddled with that Rabbinic way that I had gone; yet, when I considered what it was to glean after so clean a reaper, and how rough a Talmudical pencil would seem after so fine a pen, I resolved to sit down, and to stir no more in that matter, till time and occasion did show me more encouragement thereunto, than as yet I saw. And thus was my promise fallen to the ground, not by any carelessness or forgetfulness of mine, but by the happy prevention of another hand, by whom the work is likely to be better done. Yet was I unwilling to suffer my word utterly to come to nothing at all, though I might evade my promise by this fair excuse: but I was desirous to pay the reader something in pursuance of it, though it were not in this very same coin, nor the very same sum, that I had undertaken. Hereupon I turned my thoughts and my endeavours to a description of the Temple after the same manner, and from the same authors, that I had intended to have described the Land; and that the rather, not only that I might do some thing towards making good my promise; but also, that by a trial in a work of this nature of a lesser bulk, I might take some pattern and assay how the other, which would prove of a far larger pains and volume, would be accepted, if I should again venture upon it.” Lightfoot was sincere in the commendation which he bestowed upon Fuller's diligence, and his felicitous way of writing. And Fuller on his part rendered justice in the same spirit to Lightfoot's well known and peculiar erudition. “Far be it from me,” he says, “that our pens should fall out, like the herdsmen of Lot and Abraham, the land not being able to bear them both, that they might dwell together. No such want of room in this subject, being of such latitude and receipt, that both we and hundreds more, busied together therein, may severally lose ourselves in a subject of such capacity. The rather, because we embrace several courses in this our description; it being my desire and delight, to stick only to the written word of God, whilst my worthy friend takes in the choicest Rabbinical and Talmudical relations, being so well seen in these studies, that it is questionable whether his skill or my ignorance be the greater therein.” Now then—(for now and then go thus lovingly together, in familiar English—)—after these preliminaries, the learned Lightfoot, who at seven years of age, it is said could not only read fluently the biblical Hebrew, but readily converse in it, may tell his own story.