only look back to his death,--now sixty-four years past,--but almost
fifty years beyond, that, even to his childhood and youth; and gather
thence such observations and prognostics as may at least adorn, if not
prove necessary for the completing of what I have undertaken.

[Sidenote: Reasons for this Life]

This trouble I foresee, and foresee also that it is impossible to
escape censures; against which I will not hope my well-meaning and
diligence can protect me,--for I consider the age in which I live--and
shall therefore but intreat of my Reader a suspension of his censures,
till I have made known unto him some reasons, which I myself would now
gladly believe do make me in some measure fit for this undertaking;
and if these reasons shall not acquit me from all censures, they may
at least abate of their severity, and this is all I can probably hope
for. My reasons follow.

About forty years past--for I am now past the seventy of my
age--I began a happy affinity with William Cranmer,--now with
God,--grand-nephew unto the great Archbishop of that name;--a family
of noted prudence and resolution; with him and two of his sisters I
had an entire and free friendship: one of them was the wife of Dr.
Spencer,[1] a bosom friend and sometime com-pupil with Mr. Hooker in
Corpus Christi College in Oxford, and after President of the same. I
name them here, for that I shall have occasion to mention them in the
following discourse, as also George Cranmer, their brother, of whose
useful abilities my Reader may have a more authentic testimony than my
pen can purchase for him, by that of our learned Camden and others.

[Sidenote: Hooker's friends]

This William Cranmer and his two fore-named sisters had some affinity,
and a most familiar friendship, with Mr. Hooker, and had had some
part of their education with him in his house, when he was parson of
Bishop's-Bourne near Canterbury; in which City their good father then
lived. They had, I say, a part of their education with him as myself,
since that time, a happy cohabitation with them; and having some
years before read part of Mr. Hooker's works with great liking and
satisfaction, my affection to them made me a diligent inquisitor into
many things that concerned him; as namely, of his persons, his nature,
the management of his time, his wife, his family, and the fortune
of him and his. Which enquiry hath given me much advantage in the
knowledge of what is now under my consideration,