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 fuit æqua potestas._] [Footnote t: +kathaper empsuchou sômatos tôn spheôn exairetheisôn akreionas to holon: houtôs ex historias ean arês tên alêtheian, to kataloipomenon autês, anateles gignetai diêgêma+ _Polib. historiarum lib. 12._] [Footnote u: _Timaus_ +Kaionos idiotês eutheia+.] [Footnote x: _Tacitus Annal. lib. 2._] [Footnote y: _Idem annal. lib. 12 & 13 & Suetonius in Claudio c. 33._] [Footnote z: _Plutarchus in Mario._] [Footnote aa: _Apuleius._] [Footnote bb: _Munsterus Cosmographiæ lib. 2._] [Footnote cc: _Remigius_, a iudge in these cases reporteth of 900 executed in Lorayne for this offence of Witch-craft in the time of his gouernement.] [Footnote dd: _Lutherus in Genesin._]