their capacitee, so it could not be, onlesse he had a hundred eies. So imagined they Ianus to haue two faces, one lokyng forwarde, and an other backwarde, bycause he coulde so wittily compare thynges paste with thynges that were to come, and so duely pondre them, as yf they were all present. Of like reasõ did they feyn Lynceus to haue such sharp syght, that he could see through walles and hylles, bycause peraduenture he dyd by naturall iudgement declare what cõmoditees myght be digged out of the grounde. And an infinite noumbre lyke fables are there, whiche sprange all of lyke reason. For what other thyng meaneth the fable of the great gyant Atlas, whiche was ymagined to beare vp heauen on his shulders? but that he was a man of so high a witte, that it reached vnto the skye, and was so skylfull in Astronomie, and coulde tell before hande of Eclipses, and other like thynges as truely as though he dyd rule the sterres, and gouerne the planettes. So was Eolus accompted god of the wyndes, and to haue theim all in a caue at his pleasure, by reason that he was a wittie man in naturall knowlege, and obserued well the change of wethers, aud was the fyrst that taught the obseruation of the wyndes. And lyke reson is to be geuen of al the old fables. But to retourne agayne to Archimedes, he dyd also by arte perspectiue (whiche is a parte of geometrie) deuise such glasses within the towne of Syracusæ, that dyd bourne their ennemies shyppes a great way from the towne, whyche was a meruaylous politike thynge. And if I shulde repete the varietees of suche straunge inuentions, as Archimedes and others haue wrought by geometrie, I should not onely excede the order of a preface, but I should also speake of suche thynges as can not well be vnderstande in talke, without somme knowledge in the principles of geometrie. But this will I promyse, that if I may perceaue my paynes to be thankfully taken, I wyll not onely write of suche pleasant inuentions, declaryng what they were, but also wil teache howe a great numbre of them were wroughte, that they may be practised in this tyme also. Wherby shallbe plainly perceaued, that many thynges seme impossible to be done, whiche by arte may very well be wrought. And whan they be wrought, and the reason therof not vnderstande, than say the vulgare people, that those thynges are done by negromancy. And hereof came it that fryer Bakon was accompted so greate a negromancier, whiche neuer vsed that arte (by any coniecture that I can fynde) but was in geometrie and other mathematicall sciences so experte, that he coulde dooe by theim suche thynges as were wonderfull in the syght of most people.