"Calling to mind (right worshipfuls) not only the manifold curtesies and benefits, which I found and received, now more than thirty years ago, _when I taught the grammar schoole at Okeham in Rutland_, and sundry times since, of the religious and virtuous lady, Lucie Harington," &c.
The "Dedication" is subscribed "Robert Cawdray." Cawdray was also the author of a work _On the Profit and Necessity of Catechising_, London, 1592, 8vo.
The "Epistle Dedicatorie," as well as the title-page, appears to be wanting in J. H. S.'s copy of Robert Cawdray's _Store-house_, which was "printed by Thomas Creede, London, 1609." From this we find that it was dedicated to "his singular benefactors, Sir John Harington, Knight, as also to the Worshipfull James Harington, Esquire, his brother," whose "great kindness and favourable good will (during my long trouble, and since)" the author afterwards "calls to mind," and also the "manifold curtesies and benefites which I found and received, now more than thirtie years agoe (when I taught the Grammar School at Okeham in Rutland, and sundrie times since) of the religious and vertuous lady, _Lucie Harington_ your Worship's Mother, and my especial friend in the Lord." Would this be the "lady, a prudent woman," who "had the princess Elizabeth committed to her government" (vide Fuller's _Worthies_, Rutlandshire)?
J. H. S.'s Query recalls two examples of the "magnetic needle simile" (Vol. vi. and vii. _passim_), which Cawdray has garnered in his _Store-house_, and which fact would probably account for their appearance in many sermons of the period, as the book being expressly intended to "lay open, rip up, and display in their kindes," "verie manie most horrible and foule vices and dangerous sinnes of all sorts;" and the "verie fitte similitudes" being for the most part "borrowed from manie kindes and sundrie naturall things, both in the Olde and New Testament," and being as the writer says "for preachers profitable," would find a place on many a clerical shelf; and its contents be freely used to "learnedly beautifie their matter, and brauely garnish and decke out" their discourses. I fear that I have already encroached too much on your valuable space, but send copies for use at discretion. In the first, the "Sayler's Gnomon" is used as an emblem of the constancy which ought to animate every "Christian man;" and in the second, of steadfastness amidst the temptations of the world. I shall be glad to know more of Cawdray than the trifles I have gathered from his book: