“I see not, if souls do not partly consist of music, how it should come to pass that so noble a spirit as yours, so perfectly tuned to so perpetual a tenor of excellencies as it is, should descend to the notice of a quality lying single in so low a personage as myself.”

Links the soul itself to musical harmony in a dedicatory conceit · Dedication to Henry Lord Windsor, Madrigals of 5 and 6 Parts, 1600

• Music
• Nobility
• Soul

“These six dishes full of divers madrigals, the first fruits of my barren ground, unripe in regard of time, unsavoury in respect of others. Therefore taste, and again I pray you: if they like your appetite, spare not my orchard; if they offend your stomach, lay them by to ripen, and you shall prove of my latter vintage.”

Modest self-appraisal of early work as unripe fruit awaiting fuller harvest · Dedication to George Phillpot, Madrigals to 3, 4, 5 and 6 Voices, 1597

• Humility
• Music
• Writing

“My years yet unripened, and this work not a little hastened, cannot promise any choice notes of music.”

Acknowledges youth and haste while seeking patronage · Dedication to Edward Darcy, Balletts and Madrigals, 1598

• Humility
• Music
• Youth