PHILIPP

MELANCHTHON

TO THE STUDIOUS YOUTHS,

ALBERT AND JOHN REIF=

FENSTEIN, SONS OF WIL=

LIAM,

GREETINGS.

A decorative square woodcut initial 'C' features a rabbit or hare sitting amidst foliage and floral motifs.
When I published the Dialectics two years ago, and dedicated it to your excellent father, so that he might propose it for you and your fellow students to learn, if it seemed good to him: and when I understood that you were already successfully occupied in the study of that art, I decided that Rhetoric should also be sent to you, so that you might join the related arts, which are so coupled and bound together that they are better perceived both at the same time than separately.

But with what intention I wrote the Dialectics in the beginning, I have already prefaced there. For I did not publish it so that I might strike more abundant authors from the hands of students. For I hope those elements of ours will be a help to those who are about to approach Aristotle, and as the Greeks say, prò hodō prepared for the way/introductory. But at that time in the schools, the necessary precepts, and for judging