_AMong all the infinit good blessings, right honorable, which the Lord God hath bestowed vpon vs, I thinke none more expedient and necessarie, than the vse and knowledge of histories and chronicles: which are the most assured registers of the innumerable benefits and commodities, which haue and dailie doo grow to the church of God, and to the ciuill gouernment through out all nations. The vse of them began and was receiued euen from the first begin|ning, The first vse of histories. and immediatlie vpon the dispersing of the sonnes of Adam through out the world: for they were no sooner diuided into seuerall nations, but they did (as Cicero saith) make choise of some one man among themselues, who surpassed the rest in wisedome, know|ledge and vnderstanding, Ad quem confugiebant. These kind of men The first chro|nographers. for the most part in those daies were preests and philosophers, and for their great knowledge, wisedome and credit, had the charge to commend to their posteritie such notable and good acts as were woor|thie the memorie. And as all other nations had such men, so the re|mote Ilands in the great Ocean had the like. For Britaine, now conteining England, Scotland and Wales, had The first chro|nographers in England and Ireland. their Druides and Bardos, and Ireland had their Odalies or Rimers, who being verie wise men & of great credit, did deliuer all their saiengs in meeter, and were therefore called Poets. And these for the better alluring of the people to attention, and to frame them to the knowledge of vertue, did vse to sing with an instrument such les|sons and instructions as they were woont to giue, whether it were concerning manners and common conuer|sation, Poets were the first chro|nographers in Britaine. or matters of policie and gouernment, or of prowesse and martiall affaires, or of the gests of their ance|stors, or of anie other thing thought meet to be learned and woorthie the knowledge, by which meanes they made men the more apt, readie, and willing to applie themselues to vertue and to a commendable course of life, both concerning God how he was to be honored, the magistrate how he was to be obeied, & the common soci|etie how it was to be conserued; and finallie how the whole course of mans life was to be ordered and directed. The definition of an historie. Cicero de oratore. These and manie other like commodities when Cicero had considered, did grow by these means, which is the verie substance of an historie: he described the same to be the witnesse of time, the light of truth, the life of memorie, and the mistresse of life: willing and aduising euerie man at all times and in all matters to haue their recourse to the same, and to be well exercised in the knowledge thereof, bicause the things past are set downe therin, and by them a man may learne what to doo in the life to come. For as the wise man saith, There is nothing Ecclesiast. 1. 3. new vnder the sunne: for the thing which is now hath beene, and by the things past we are taught the things to come. And so saith Augustine: Historia magis vel certè non minùs praenunciandis futuris, quàm enunciandis August. de ciuit. Dei. Chronica Ca|rionis. Thucidides. praeteritis inuenitur intenta: Histories doo teach and aduertise vs as well of the things to come, as of the things past: and the knowledge thereof is so no necessarie that Melancthon would haue no man to be vnlearned in hi|stories, bicause Sine qua nulla in re quispiam lucem habet. And Thucidides the old ancient historiographer of Grecia would that euerie man should haue about him a booke of histories, as a thing most necessarie for him in all matters whatsoeuer: and this did he draw and learne (as it should seeme) from Moses, who when he had faithfullie and diligentlie written and set downe the whole course of the world, the woonderfull works of God, and all the most necessarie precepts and rules for mans life, either concerning matters of religion or causes of ci|uill policies, or of common societie: then he and Iosua assembling all the people togither, did deliuer vnto them the whole Pentatychon of Moses to be dailie read & taught, with a commandement that they should neuer haue Deutero. 5. Iosue. 1. that booke out of their hands, but to haue alwaies their continuall recourse to them, as well for their life, as also for their direction in all their causes. Which thing they did most diligentlie obserue and keepe, and not onelie in matters of religion, but in all doubtfull matters, as to the most true oracles, they would make their recourse for their full resolutions. As the enimies of Iehuda, when they saw the prosperous successe of the building of the temple in the times of Ezras and Nehemias, and they much maligning the same, made sute to king Artaxerxes 1. Esdras. 4. Nehemias. that he would reuoke the decree which king Cyrus had made vnto the Iewes, licencing them to build the tem|ple, alledging manie great and sundrie matters against them. Wherevpon the king commanded the chronicles to be searched, whether it were true that had beene informed against them. Likewise when Hamon had gree|uouslie Esther. 6. complained vnto king Ahasuerus against Mardocheus and the Iewes, charging them with sundrie hai|nous offenses worthie death, the king commanded the chronicles to be searched. Also when Paule and Sylas Acts. 17. first preached the gospell at Thessalonica and Baerea, a doctrine then accompted strange and new, they searched and examined the books Num haec ita se haberent. For as they found things there recorded, so gaue they credit, and by the same they did proceed in the like. For it was a common thing among the Romans, that not onelie [page 61] they would make recourse in all doubtfull matters to their owne annales: but what so euer they sound in the like in anie other nation or commonwealth, which might further them in anie thing touching their owne affaires, they would draw the same into an example for themselues to follow, which was no small benefit to their com|monwealth.