Tis strange to me, that they that love to tell

Things done of old, yea, and that do excel

Their equals in historiology,

Speak not of Mansoul's wars, but let them lie

Dead, like old fables, or such worthless things,

That to the reader no advantage brings:

When men, let them make what they will their own,

Till they know this, are to themselves unknown.

Of stories, I well know, there's divers sorts,

Some foreign, some domestic; and reports

Are thereof made as fancy leads the writers.

(By books a man may guess at the inditers.)

Some will again of that which never was,

Nor will be, feign (and that without a cause)

Such matter, raise such mountains, tell such things

Of men, of laws, of countries, and of kings;