than the Duke of _Ferrara_ did of _Ariosto_, after he had read his
_Orlando, Messer Lodovico done diavolo havete pigliato tante
coyonerie_? As for me, I hold, that the more natural adventures
are, the more satisfaction they give; and the ordinary course of the
Sun seems more marvellous to me, than the strange and deadly rayes
of Comets; for which reason it is also that I have not caused so
many Shipwrecks, as there are in some ancient _Romanzes_; and to
speak seriously, _Du Bartas_ might say of these Authors,

_That with their word they bind,
Or loose, at will, the blowing of the wind._

So as one might think that _Æolus_ hath given them the Winds
inclosed in a bagg, as he gave them to _Ulysses_, so patly do they
unchain them; they make tempests and shipwracks when they please,
they raise them on the Pacifique Sea, they find rocks and shelves
where the most expert Pilots have never observed any: But they which
dispose thus of the winds, know not how the Prophet doth assure us,
that God keeps them in his Treasures; and that Philosophy, as clear
sighted as it is, could never discover their retreat. Howbeit I
pretend not hereby to banish Shipwrecks from _Romanzes_, I approve
of them in the works of others, and make use of them in mine; I know
likewise, that the Sea is the Scene most proper to make great
changes in, and that some have named it the Theatre of inconstancy;
but as all excess is vicious, I have made use of it but moderately,
for to conserve true resembling: Now the same design is the cause
also, that my _Heros_ is not oppressed with such a prodigious
quantity of accidents, as arrive unto some others, for that
according to my sense, the same is far from true resemblance, the
life of no man having ever been so cross'd. It would be better in my