Learned Decisions, Title page – Dedication
CYGNEA CANTIO: OR, LEARNED DECISIONS, AND MOST PRVDENT AND PIOVS DIRECTIONS FOR STVDENTS IN DIVINITIE; Delivered by our late Soveraigne of Happie Memorie, KING IAMES, At White Hall a few weekes before his Death.
Eccles 12. 11. The words of the wise are as goad, and as nailes fastened by the masters of the assemblie.
LONDON, Printed for Robert Mylbourne at the Signe of the Greyhound in Pauls Churchyard. 1629.
TO THE KINGS MOST EXCELLENT MAIESTIE.
Dread Soveraigne:
THere is nothing can dry the overflowing spring ofteares in all your loyall Subjects eyes for the inestimable losse of our late Soveraigne, your most Noble Father, but the Orient beames, & bright lustre of your Majesties Emperiall Crowne, and most happy reigne over us: whereby that is come to passe which the ancient English Poet so much admired, Sol occubuit nox nulla secuta est: The Sunne set, and no night ensued thereupon: Blessed and glorified bee his Name for it, that dwelleth in a light which none can approach unto. Who had no sooner fitted the King your Father for a throne in heaven, but he fitted you his Son for his throne upon earth, and hath peaceably setled you in it.
Vno avulso non deficit alter
Aureus ac simili frondescit virga metallo.
No sooner that golden branch was plucked away, but another of the same stocke groweth up in the roome: VnderUnder whose shade the Church and Common wealth now shelter themselves. If any man have any of your Fathers Iewels, he ought to bring them to you his sole Heire. The learned resolutions, and divine instructions which I lately received from your Fathers mouth, I value no lesse then peereless Pearles: And because the last speech of a departing friend maketh the deepest impression, and Art herein imitating Nature holdeth out long the last note of the dying sound in the Organ; I thought it my duty to offer unto your Majestie the ensuing Relation of the last polemicall discourses of his Majesty your Father, in matter of controversie in Divinity. I reade in Martial of a Fly that by a drop of Amber casually falling upon it, grew in such request, that a great summe of money was given for it.
implicuit succina gutta feram
Et sic quae fuerat vitâ, contempta, manente
Facta est funeribus mox pretiosa suis.
The like I am perswaded of the inclosed Narration, that many will esteeme of it not for the flyes sake, but for the Amber; not for it selfe or the penners sake, but for his Majesties remarkeable passages related in it. For my part I challenge no more therein than S. Austine did in his childe Adeodatus, Nihil agnosco meum nifi peccatum: I owne nothing in it but the faults and defects. All my hope is, that the darker the foile is, the brighter the Diamonds of his Majesties speeches inserted therin will appeare; which with all humility I present to your Majestie with the tender of my bounden duty, and service to God for you, to you for God as becommeth
Your Majesties meanest, yet most humble and affectionately devoted Subject, Daniel Featly.