A modest meane
to Mariage, pleasauntly
set foorth by that
famous Clarke Erasmus Roterodamus,
and translated
into Englishe
by N. L.

Anno. 1568.

¶ Imprinted at London

by Henrie Denham,

dwelling in Pater noster
Rowe, at the signe
of the Starre.

¶ To the right worshipfull

Maister Francis Rogers

Esquire, one of the Gentlemen pensioners
vnto the Queenes Maiestie, Nicholas
Leigh wisheth long & quiet
lyfe, with much increase
of virtue and
worship.

When I remember(gentle Maister Rogers)the auncient acquaintanceand friendship,and the daylie andaccustomed metings, recourseand familiaritiethat (amōg the rest) didhappen and passe betwene vs in times past, in thoseour yong and tender yeares, and in those famousplaces of studie, vnto the which we were by ourefriendes appointed and then sent for learning sake.And when moreouer, I doe remember, waye, andcōsider therin on the one side, that state and conditionof life, in the which I was then, with that,which for my part on the other side, I doe now findand haue long since felt and tasted of, I cannot butrecken and thinke that time most happily passedwhich I bestowed in the trauaile and study of goodletters. For besides the inestimable fruit, & the incomparablepleasure & delectation, that the Musesdoe bring vnto the studious, beside the sweeterest of minde, voyde of all worldly cares and troubles,the faire & pleasaunt walkes, which we there(with a number of vertuous, and well disposed,and a sort of learned, ciuill, friendly and faithfullcompanions) enioyed, togither with the wholesomeand cleane diet, not infected with outragiousor any surfetings (a vice else where to much vsed)what honest and godly exercises had we then thereto the furtherance and increase of vertue, & to theabandoning of vice? insomuch that in a maner ithath fared with me euer since my departing thẽce,as with one that being expelled and exuled from asecond Paradise, replenished and adorned with allkinde of flagrant & of most wholesome and sweeteflowers and delights, is presently fallen as it wereinto a darke & an yrkesome thicket of bushes andbrambles of the cares and troubles of this worlde,daylie readie, not onely to molest and perturbe thequiet studious minde, but also so complete with aninfinite number of displeasures, dammages, anddaungers on euerye side that (verye much accordingto the auncient and wonted prouerbe) I maynow iustly say vix fugiet Scyllam, qui vultvitare Charybdim. Wherefore that manssaying seemed not altogither voyde of reason, thatsayde, that if there were anye choyse to be had astouching the estate of man, the better parte andthe first thereof was not to be borne at al, the nextvnto that was to die verie shortly. And yet bythe way neuerthelesse, as he that hath bene once inany suche kinde of Paradise or place of pleasure, asis aforesaide, hath alwayes nowe and then somemotions and occasions, to cast his sorrowfull eyewith a mournfull minde towardes the same: euenso I of late beholding and lamenting that chaungedplace and state of life, and in the meane seasonpervsing some pieces of mine olde exerciseswhich I had then and did there (whereof I wasalwayes bolde partly to make you priuie, as oneamong all others whose di