[Footnote p: _Theocritus in_ +pharmakeutria+ _Idil. 2._]

[Footnote q: _Lucan. Pharsalibus lib. 6._]

[Footnote r: _Horatius_ +Erodô+ _lib. 5._]

But because the reports of these may seeme to carry small credit, for
that they come from Poets, who are stained with the note of licentious
[s]faining, and so put off as vaine fictions; yet seeing they deliuer
nothing herein but that which was well knowne and vsuall in those times
wherein they liued, they are not slightly, and vpon an imagined conceit,
to be reiected: for they affirme no more then is manifest in the records
of most approued Histories, whose essence is and must be [t]truth, [u]as
straightnesse of a rule, or else deserue not that title. In which wee
reade of [x]_Martiana_, [y]_Locusta_, [z]_Martha_, [aa]_Pamphilia_,
[bb]_Aruna_, _&c._ And not to insist vpon particulars, there bee
infinite numbers ouerflowing euen in these our[cc] dayes, since the
sinceritie of Christian Profession hath decreased, and beene in a sort
ecclipsed in the hearts of men: for the period of the continuance
thereof (after it be once imbraced) in his first integrity, either for
zeale of affection, or strictnesse of discipline, hath beene by some
learned Diuines[dd] obserued, to bee confined within the compass of
twenty yeares; and then afterward by degrees, the one waxed cold, and
the other dissolute: which being so, it is not to be maruelled though
the Diuell now begin to shew himselfe in these his instruments, as
heretofore, though he cannot in the same measure, in respect of those
sparkes of light which yet shine amongst vs. But of this so much now,
because I shall haue afterward occasion further to enlarge this poynt.

[Footnote s: _Pictoribus atque Poetis quidlibet audiendi semper