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 opinion to separate the adventures, to form divers Histories of them, and to make persons acting, thereby to appear both fertile and judicious together, and to be still within this so necessary true resemblance. And indeed they who have made one man alone defeat whole Armies, have forgotten the Proverb which saith, _not one against two_; and know not that Antiquity doth assure us, how _Hercules_ would in that case be too weak. It is without all doubt, that to represent a true heroical courage, one should make it execute some thing extraordinary, as it were by a transport of the _Heros_; but he must not continue in that sort, for so those incredible actions would degenerate into ridiculous Fables, and never move the mind. This fault is the cause also of committing another; for they which doe nothing but heap adventure upon adventure, without ornament, and without stirring up passions by the artifices of Rhetorick, or irksome, in thinking to be the more entertaining. This dry Narration, and without art, hath more of an old Chronicle, than of a _Romanze_, which may very well be imbellished with those ornaments, since History, as severe and scrupulous as it is, doth not forbear employing them. Certain Authors, after they have described an adventure, a daring design, or some surprising event, able to possess one with the bravest apprehensions in the world, are contented to assure us, that such a _Heros_ thought of very gallant things, without telling us what they are; and this is that alone which I desire to know: For how can I tell, whether in these events Fortune hath not done as much as he? whether his valour be not a brutish valour? and whether he hath born the misfortunes that arrived unto him, as a worthy man should doe?