Cornelii Valerii Ultraiectini In universam benedicendi [sic] rationem tabula, summam artis rhetoricae complectens

Up to now... grammatical doctrine... true... things and Greek... and them... arranged quite suitably... some learned... of which art... [gap]... profitable to students... give... highest chapters of the whole... enumeration... dialectics... not too long to me... decided to... with only a few... transferred... teaching... Quintilian... whose words I sometimes preferred to use... collected... profitable to youth... forming youth... and they often demand... primarily for friends.

In terms of the freedom we have sometimes used, especially in tropes and figures, perhaps it should be noted that I have not always maintained the order of the ancients. Rather, I have sometimes preferred to follow the industry of certain recent writers, and I have not excluded those ornaments which might be considered not so much as figures, but rather as forms of arguing or amplifying. I have provided the reason for why I did this in its proper place, and certainly it is better that something not useless remains than that what might seem necessary to students be lacking. I thought that if I had sinned in this regard, I would obtain forgiveness more easily than if I had cheated the reader of useful precepts. While I had decided to dedicate this book to some princely man, according to the custom now common and yet also practiced by the ancients, but had not yet determined to whom, and while I was thinking about that for a long time, it came to my mind that the first fruits of my studies were offered eleven years ago to the man of outstanding prudence and learning, the Prince Lord of Pratesi, President of Holland. Since the Dialectical Tables were first published in his name, these rhetorical precepts seemed to be dedicated to no one more fittingly than to him whom Caesar chose as the successor of that President, and in whom those virtues meet that are accustomed to be attributed to the highest man. Therefore, since I have learned that the precepts of discourse which I had collected for the benefit of studies did not displease the Lord of Pratesi, I hope that this