THE TRUE STATE OF ICELAND ad. 



1592- 

 Aetna continually burning and casting up stones into 

 the aier, as Munster himselfe witnesseth ? Why not in 

 that Aethiopian hill, which Plinie affirmeth to burne 

 more then all the former? And to conclude, why not 

 in the mountaine of Vesuvius, which (to the great 

 damage of al the countrey adjoyning, & to the utter 

 destruction of Caius Plinius prying into ye causes of so 

 strange a fire) vomiting out flames as high as the clouds, 

 filling the aire with great abundance of pumistones, and 

 ashes, & with palpable darknesse intercepting the light 

 of the sunne from al the region therabout ? I wil speake, 

 & yet speake no more then the truth : because in deede 

 they foresaw, that men would yeeld no credite to those 

 things as being too well knowen, though they should 

 have feined them to have beene the flames of hell : but 

 they thought the burning of Hecla (the rumor whereof 

 came more slowly to their eares) to be fitter for the 

 establishing of this fond fable. But get ye packing, your 

 fraud is found out : leave off for shame hereafter to 

 perswade any simple man, y* there is a hel in mount 

 Hecla. For nature hath taught both us & other (maugre 

 your opinion) to acknowledge her operations in these 

 fireworkes, not the fury of hell. But now let us examine 

 a few more such fables of ye common people, which have 

 so unhappily misledd our historiographers & cosmo- 

 graphers. 



[The eight 

 119 



