The life (my lorde) which you haue ledde, sithens the taking of Constantinople, and the excessiue pleasures wherin you haue bin plunged these three yeares, is occassion that not onely your Souldiours and the rest of your popular people, but the most faithful Lords of your Empire, do murmure, conspire, and coniure against you. And pardon me (my lord) if I speake so vnreuerently, in thinges touching your preseruation. For there is no man but doth very much marueile of this great and newe alteration that appeareth in you, which doth so abase you, and maketh you to degenerate from your auncient generositie and valiaunce. Your owne selfe hath giuen ouer your selfe to be a spoile and praye to a simple woman: that you wholie depend vpon her flatteries and allurementes: reason or counsaile can take no place in your passionate and afflicted hart. But I humblie beseech your maiestie to enter a little into your selfe, and make a suruey of your life, that you haue ledde these three yeares paste. The glory of your auncestours and predecessours, acquired and wonne by sheading of so much bloud, kepte by so great prudence, conserued by so happy counsell, haue they no representation, or shew before your face? The remembraunce of theyr memorable victories, doth it not touche the depthe of your conscience? The magnanimitie and valiaunce whereby they be immortalized, and their fame regestred throughe the whole world, is it extinguished in you? Their Trophees and Monumentes grauen and aduaunced to all the corners of the earth, be they throwen downe and defaced from the siege of your remembraunce? But where is now the ardent desire which boiled in you from your infancie, to make Italie tributarie vnto you, and to cause your selfe to be crowned at Rome, Emperour aswel of Thorient, as of the Occidente? This is not the way to amplifie and inlarge your Empire, but rather to restraine and diminish the same. This is not the meane to preserue it, but to dispoile it and make it lesse. If Ottoman the first tronke or stocke of your gentle familye and kinred, had thus giuen himselfe to be corrupted in idlenes, you had not now inherited the noble kingdom of Greece, nor gouerned the countries of Galatia and Bithinia, and many other prouinces, which enuironne the greate sea. Semblablie his sonne Orcan (a liuely Image of his father and a folower of his valiaunt factes) had not triumphed ouer Licaonia, Phrigia, Caria, nor dilated the boundes of his Empyre to Hellesponte. What shall I speake of Amurates, the successour of Orcan, who was the first that inuaded Europa, conquered Thracia, Syria, Rafia and Bulgaria? And Baiazet likewyse, did not he cut of the head of the greate Tamburlain, which called himselfe the scourge of God, and brought into the field foure hundred thousande Scithians a horsebacke, and sixe hundred thousande footmen? Shall I passe ouer with silence the vertuous exploites of your grandfather Mahomet, who conquered Macedonia and made the Countries to feele the