11 PREFACE. 



been lately much abused, in that many, to purchase 

 the reverence of antiquity to their own inventions 

 and fancies, have for the same intent laboured to 

 wrest many poetical fables ; neither hath this old 

 and common vanity been used only of late, or now 

 and then : for even Chrysippus long ago did, as an 

 interpreter of dreams, ascribe the opinions of the 

 stoics to the ancient poets ; and more sottishly do 

 the chemists appropriate the fancies and delights of 

 poets in the transformations of bodies to the experi 

 ments of their furnace. All these things, I say, I 

 have sufficiently considered and weighed ; and in 

 them have seen and noted the general levity and 

 indulgence of men s wits above allegories ; and yet 

 for all this, I relinquish not my opinion. 



For, first, it may not be that the folly and loose 

 ness of a few should altogether detract from the re 

 spect due to the parables ; for that were a conceit 

 which might savour of profaneness and presump 

 tion ; for religion itself doth sometimes delight in 

 such veils and shadows ; so that whoso exempts 

 them, seems in a manner to interdict all commerce 

 between things divine and human. But concerning 

 human wisdom, I do indeed ingenuously and freely 

 confess, that I am inclined to imagine, that under 

 some of the ancient fictions lay couched certain mys 

 teries and allegories, even from their first invention; 

 and I am persuaded, whether ravished with the re 

 verence of antiquity, or because in some fables I 

 find such singular proportion between the similitude 

 and the thing signified, and such apt and clear cohe- 



