places, and also many histories were comprised in the other two books which were not in the English books therefore I have written one out of the said three books, which I have ordered otherwise than the said English legend is, which was before made; beseeching all them that shall see or hear it read to pardon me where I have erred or made fault, which, if any be, is of ignorance and against my will, and submit it wholly of such as can and may, to correct it, humbly beseeching them so to do; and in so doing they shall deserve a singular laud and merit, and I shall pray for them unto Almighty God, that he of his benign grace reward them, etc., and that it profit to all them that shall read or hear it read, and may increase in them virtue, and expel vice and sin, that by the example of the holy saints they amend their living here in this short life, that by their merits they and I may come to everlasting life and bliss in heaven. Amen.
And forasmuch as this said work was great and over chargeable to me to accomplish, I feared me in the beginning of the translation to have continued it, because of the long time of the translation, and also in the imprinting of the same, and, in manner half desperate to have accomplished it, was in purpose to have left it after that I had begun to translate it and to have laid it apart, ne had it been at the instance and request of the puissant, noble, and virtuous Earl, my lord William, Earl of Arundel, which desired me to proceed and continue the said work, and promised me to take a reasonable quantity of them when they were achieved and accomplished, and sent
B
