Affrike.

¶ The first Chapiter.

¶ The true opinion of the deuine, concernyng the beginnyng of man.

When God had in V. daies made perfecte the heauens and the earth, and the
furniture of bothe: whiche the Latines for the goodlinesse and beautie
thereof, call Mundus, and we (I knowe not for what reason) haue named the
worlde: the sixth daie, to the entent there mighte be one to enioye, and be
Lorde ooer all, he made the moste notable creature Man. One that of all
earthly creatures alone, is endowed with a mynde, and spirit from aboue.
And he gaue him to name, Adam; accordyng to the colour of the molde he was
made of. Then drawing out of his side the woman, whilest he slept, to
thende he should not be alone, knitte her vnto hym, as an vnseparable
compaignion, and therwith placed them in the moste pleasaunt plot of the
earth, fostered to flourishe with the moisture of floudes on euery parte.
The place for the fresshe grienesse and merie shewe, the Greques name
Paradisos. There lyued they a whyle a moste blessed life without bleamishe
of wo, the earth of the own accorde bringing forth all thing. But when they
ones had transgressed the precepte, they ware banysshed that enhabitaunce
of pleasure and driuen to shift the world. And fro thenceforth the
graciousnes of the earth was also abated, and the francke fertilitie therof
so withdrawen, that labour and swette, now wan [Footnote: _Wan_ and won
were used indifferently. Thus in Drayton's _Polyolbion_, xi., p. 864 we
find--"These with the Saxons went, and fortunately _wan_,
Whose Captain Hengist first a Kingdom here began."