OF THE PLANTATIONS IN IRELAND. 171 



and which since I have to my power seconded by my 

 travails, not only in discourse, but in action : so 

 I am thereby encouraged to do the like, touching 

 this matter of plantation ; hoping that your majesty 

 will, through the weakness of my ability, discern the 

 strength of my affection, and the honest and fervent 

 desire I have to see your majesty s person, name, 

 and times, blessed and exalted above those of your 

 royal progenitors. And I was the rather invited 

 this to do, by the remembrance, that when the lord 

 Chief Justice deceased, Popham, served in the place 

 wherein I now serve, and afterwards in the attorney s 

 place ; he laboured greatly in the last project, 

 touching the plantation of Munster : which never 

 theless, as it seemeth, hath given more light by the 

 errors thereof, what to avoid, than by the direction 

 of the same, what to follow. 



First therefore, I will speak somewhat of the ex 

 cellency of the work, and then of the means to 

 compass and effect it. 



For the excellency of the work, I will divide it 

 into four noble and worthy consequences that will 

 follow thereupon. 



The first of the four, is honour ; whereof I have 

 spoken enough already, were it not that the harp 

 of Ireland puts me in mind of that glorious emblem 

 or allegory, wherein the wisdom of antiquity did 

 figure and shadow out works of this nature. For 

 the poets feigned that Orpheus, by the virtue and 

 sweetness of his harp, did call and assemble the 

 beasts and birds, of their nature wild and savage, to 



