EPISTLE

You have willed that students be sent to universities at your own expense, that they be supported, and that they successfully complete their course of studies, so that they might one day be an honor and a benefit to Your Highness and the state. By this means, your illustrious retinue—being adorned with men distinguished by learning, prudence, reputation, and the knowledge and experience of affairs—ought not undeservedly be counted among the other most celebrated ornaments of your court. Yet this should seem less surprising because you, being learned yourself, have always pursued scholars with such zeal that you have never ceased, since the time you became prince, to attract and summon them into your most ample household with whatever honors and stipends. Thus, by no common providence, it has come to pass that here, in the venerable assembly of the Senatorial order, Your Highness has deigned to place in the first rank a man most famous for his multifaceted learning, uncommon prudence, experience in various affairs, and exceptional gifts of mind and body: Dr. Henricus Barzius, called Olisleger Heinrich Olisleger (d. 1575) was a prominent diplomat and Chancellor for the Duchy of Cleves, Doctor of Laws and the most vigilant Chancellor of Cleves, and a most devoted lover of his country; he is certainly worth many others original Greek: "πολλῶν ἀντάξιος ἄλλων"; a Homeric phrase from the Iliad, often used to describe a physician or a man of great value. But it is better to restrain my pen here than to touch lightly with a meager speech upon the truly heroic virtues of Your Highness, which leave all praise of all men behind; these I have not learned by the report of others, but behold daily with these very eyes in Your Highness as if in a most clear mirror. Therefore, with such and so great a Prince not denying his patronage, I trust that I shall without difficulty overcome the biting teeth of insolent fault-finders original: "vitilitigatorum"; a term for those who enjoy finding faults and starting legalistic quarrels: especially...