thought good in my poor estate to undertake this most tiresome business, hoping the Lord will send a blessing on my labours taken in my vocation. Thinking it as necessarie for the Bookeseller (considering the number and nature of them) to haue a Catalogue of our English Bookes as the Apothecaire his Dispensatorium or the Schoolmaster his Dictionarie. By means of which my poore trauailes I will draw to your memories Bookes that you could not remember and shew to the learind such Bookes as they would not thinke were in our owne tongues....”
Además de dedicar su libro a la reina Isabel, se dirige a «la Compañía de Libreros (Stationers) y a todos los demás impresores y libreros», a quienes les dice—
“En mi vocación me he esmerado por hacer algo: mi propósito es mostrar (del modo que puedo) lo que tenemos impreso en nuestra propia lengua, algo que pocos valoran. Pues algunos vuelan tan alto que no miran tan abajo como hacia los escritores de su propio país, y a otros no les importan los libros antiguos, sino que preguntan: ¿qué hay de nuevo?, ¿o qué nuevos escritores hay?”
A los reverendos divinos les dice—
“The consideration whereof hath moved me (most unworthie and unable of many others) to undertake this trifeling yet most toylesome & troublesome busines, wherby the reader shall haue this help, and he may see at home in his Studie what Bookes are written and how many translated.
And though it be imperfect as I know not what first Booke either of Dictionarie or Herball or such like was perfect at the first or second edition, yet he that helpeth me to put in one Booke that I have not seene, I hope I shall shew him ten that he never heard of either new or old.”