The God of Arts that gives thee Light, as clear As his, that thou might’st be his Agent here In all his Secrets; courts thee to go on, Till thou hast made thy self another Sun. _Æternum vivant si vera Oracula Phœbi_ _~Nostradami~ vivent; & Patris illa mei;_ Petrus. THE PREFACE TO THE READER. _READER_, Before I speak any thing of the Author, or of his Works, I think it convenient to speak somthing of my self, and of my intention in setting out this Translation, with my Annotations. The Reputation that this Book hath amongst all the _Europeans_, since its first coming out, which was in the year 1555. and the curiosity that from time to time the learned have had to see the Mysteries contained in it, unfolded: is a sufficient warrant for my undertaking. Many better Pens (I confess) could have performed this work with better success, but not with greater facility than I, having from my youth been conversant with those that pretended or endeavered to know somthing in it. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for a man of my profession to wade through it. This Book was the first after my Primmer, wherein I did learn to read, it being then the Custom in _France_, about the year 1618. to initiate Children by that Book; First, because of the crabbidness of the words; Secondly, that they might be acquainted with the old and absolete _French_, such as is now used in the _English_ Law; and Thirdly, for the delightfulness and variety of the matter, so that this Book in those days was printed every year like an Almanack, or a Primer for Children. From that time, without any other Study than reading of History, and observing the events of the world, and conversing with those that made it their Study, (some of which were like to run mad about it) I have attained to so much Knowledge, as to bring it into a Volume. The Book is written in the Nature of Prophecies, digested into old _French_ Verses, most of which are very hard to be understood, and others impossible at all, whether the Author did affect obscurity, or else wanted the faculty to express himself, which is the cause that it could not be rendred into _English_ Verses, it being troublesome enough to be understood in Prose, as the Reader will find. That’s the reason that I have translated it almost word for word, to make it as plain as I could; as also because the Reader (if curious of it) may benefit himself in the knowledge of the _French_ Tongue, by comparing the _English_ and _French_ together. The rest that can be said upon this subject, you shall find either in the Authors Life, or in the Appology made for him.