THE PREFACE. 



THE antiquities of the first age (except those we 

 find in sacred writ) were buried in oblivion and 

 silence : silence was succeeded by poetical fables ; 

 and fables again were followed by the records we 

 now enjoy : so that the mysteries and secrets of an 

 tiquity were distinguished and separated from the 

 records and evidences of succeeding times, by the veil 

 of fiction, which interposed itself, and came between 

 those things which perished and those which are 

 extant. I suppose some are of opinion that my 

 purpose is to write toys and trifles, and to usurp the 

 same liberty in applying, that the poets assumed in 

 feigning, which I might do (confess) if I listed, 

 and with more serious contemplation intermix these 

 things, to delight either myself in meditation, or 

 others in reading. Neither am I ignorant how fickle 

 and inconstant a thing fiction is, as being subject to 

 be drawn and wrested any way, and how great the 

 commodity of wit and discourse is, that is able to 

 apply things well, yet so as never meant by the first 

 authors. But I remember that this liberty hath 

 VOL. 3. B 



