What shall I say? Or shall I say no more? I must go on! I'm brim-full, running o'er. But yet I'll hold, because I judge ye wise; And few words unto such may well suffice. But much—much more than this I could declare; Yet for some certain reasons I'll forbear. But less than this I could not say; because, If saying less, I should neglect my cause, For 'tis the Doctor's cause I plead so strong for, And 'tis his cause compleated that I long for, And 'tis true doctrine certainly I preach, And 'tis that doctrine every priest should teach. THOMAS MACE, TO ALL DIVINE READERS. O Lady fair, before we say, Now cease my lute; this is the last Labour that thou and I shall waste, And ended is that we begun; My lute be still, for I have done:[1] before we say this, O Lady fair, play I pray you the following lesson by good Master Mace. It will put you in tune for the story “not impertinent” concerning it, which he thought fit to relate, although, he said, many might chuse to smile at it. You may thank Sir John Hawkins for having rendered it from tablature into the characters of musical notation. [Illustration: music score.] [Footnote 1: SIR THOMAS WYAT.] “This Lesson,” says Master Mace, “I call my Mistress, and I shall not think it impertinent to detain you here a little longer than ordinary in speaking something of it, the occasion of it, and why I give it that name. And I doubt not, but the relation I shall give may conduce to your advantage in several respects, but chiefly in respect of Invention. “You must first know, That it is a lesson, though old; yet I never knew it disrelished by any, nor is there any one lesson in this Book of that age, as it is; yet I do esteem it (in its kind) with the best Lesson in the Book, for several good reasons, which I shall here set down. “It is, this very winter, just forty years since I made it—and yet it is new, because all like it,—and then when I was past being a suitor to my best beloved, dearest, and sweetest living Mistress, but not married, yet contriving the best, and readiest way towards it; And thus it was,