Whereas we cannot be knowing but of that which others do teach us, and that it is for him that comes after, to follow them who precede him, I have believed, that for the laying the ground-plot of this work, we are to consult with the Grecians, who have been our first Masters, pursue the course which they have held, and labour in imitating them to arrive at the same end, which those great men propounded to themselves. I have seen in those famous _Romanzes_ of Antiquity, that in imitation of the Epique Poem there is a principal action whereunto all the rest, which reign over all the work, are fastned, and which makes them that they are not employed, but for the conducting of it to its perfection. The action in _Homers Iliades_ is the destrustion of _Troy_; in his _Odysseas_ the return of _Ulysses_ to _Ithaca_; in _Virgil_ the death of _Turnus_, or to say better, the conquest of _Italy_; neerer to our times, in _Tasso_ the taking of _Jerusalem_; and to pass from the Poem to the _Romanze_, which is my principal object, in _Helidorus_ the marriage of _Theagines_ and _Cariclia_. It is not because the Episodes in the one, and the several Histories in the other, are not rather beauties than defects; but it is alwayes necessary, that the Addresse of him which employes them should hold them in some sort to this principal action, to the end, that by this ingenious concatenation, all the parts of them should make but one body, and that nothing may be seen in them which is loose and unprofitable. Thus the marriage of my _Justiniano_ and his _Isabella_, being the object which I have proposed unto my self, I have employed all my care so to doe, that all parts of my work may tend to that conclusion; that there may be a strong connexion between them; and that, except the obstacle which Fortune opposeth to the desires of my _Hero_'s, all things may advance, or at leastwise endeavour to advance his marriage, which is the end of my labour. Now those great Geniusses of antiquity, from whom I borrow my light, knowing that well-ordering is one of the principal parts of a piece, have given so excellent a one to their speaking Pictures, that it would be as much stupidity, as pride, not to imitate them. They have not done like those Painters, who present in one and the same cloth a Prince in the Cradle, upon the Throne, and in the Tombe, perplexing, by this so little judicious a confusion, him that considers their work; but with an incomparable address they begin their History in the midle, so to give some suspence to the Reader, even from the first opening of the Book; and to confine themselves within reasonable bounds they have made the History (as I likewise have done after them) not to last above a year, the rest being delivered by Narration. Thus all things being ingeniously placed, and of a just greatness, no doubt, but pleasure will redound from thence to him that beholds them, and glory to him that hath done them. But amongst all the rules which are to be