PREFACE. V 



&quot; find it was an ancient vanity in Chrysippus, that 

 &quot; troubled himself with great contention to fasten 

 &quot; the assertions of the Stoics upon the fictions of the 

 &quot; ancient poets ; but yet that all the fables and fic- 

 &quot; tions of the poets were but pleasure and not figure, 

 &quot; I interpose no opinion. Surely of those poets 

 &quot; which are now extant, even Homer himself, (not- 

 &quot; withstanding he was made a kind of Scripture by 

 &quot; the latter schools of the Grecians,) yet I should 

 &quot; without any difficulty pronounce that his fables 

 &quot; had no such inwardness in his own meaning ; but 

 &quot; what they might have upon a more original tradi- 

 &quot; tion, is not easy to affirm ; for he was not the 

 &quot; inventor of many of them.&quot; 



In the treatise &quot; De Augmentis,&quot; the same 

 sentiments will be found with a slight alteration in 

 the expressions. He says, &quot; there is another use of 

 &quot; parabolical poesy, opposite to the former, which 

 &quot; tendeth to the folding up of those things, the 

 &quot; dignity whereof, deserves to be retired and dis- 

 &quot; tinguished, as with a drawn curtain : that is, when 

 &quot; the secrets and mysteries of religion, policy, and 

 &quot; philosophy are veiled and invested with fables, 

 &quot; and parables. But whether there be any mystical 

 &quot; sense couched under the ancient fables of the 

 &quot; poets, may admit some doubt : and indeed for our 

 &quot; part we incline to this opinion, as to think, that 

 &quot; there was an infused mystery in many of the an- 

 &quot; cient fables of the poets. Neither doth it move 

 &quot; us that these matters are left commonly to school- 

 &quot; boys, and grammarians, and so are embased, that 



