the dimensions of Architecture, whereas I have employed but the
Ornaments thereof; it is not because they are not Beauties suitable
to the _Romanze_, as well as to the _Epique Poem_, since the most
famous both of the one and the other have them; nor is it too
because mine is not grounded on the History, which assures us that
it was the most superb the Turks ever made, as still appears by the
remains thereof, which they of that Nation call _Serrau Ibrahim_.

But to conclude, as inclinations ought to be free, such as love not
those beautifull things, for which I have so much passion (as I have
said) pass on without looking on them, and leave them to others more
curious of those rarities, which I have assembled together with art
and care enough. Now Reader, ingenuity being a matter necessary for
a man of Honour, and the theft of glory being the basest that may be
committed, I must confess here for fear of being accused of it, that
the History of the Count of _Lavagna_, which you shall see in my
Book, is partly a Paraphrase of _Mascardies_; this Adventure falling
out in the time whilest I was writing, I judged it too excellent not
to set it down, and too well indited for to undertake to do it
better; so that regard not this place but as a Translation of that
famous Italian, and except the matters, which concern my History,
attribute all to that great man, whose Interpreter only I am. And if
you finde something not very serious in the Histories of a certain
French Marquis, which I have interlaced in my Book, remember if you
please, that a _Romanze_ ought to have the Images of all natures;
and this diversity makes up the beauties of it, and the delight of
the Reader; and at the worst regard it as the sport of a
Melancholick, and suffer it without blaming it. But before I make an
end, I must pass from matters to the manner of delivering them, and
desire you also not to forget, that a Narrative stile ought not to
be too much inflated, no more than that of ordinarie conversations;
that the more facile it is, the more excellent it is; that it ought
to glide along like the Rivers, and not rebound up like Torrents;
and that the less constraint it hath, the more perfection it hath; I
have endeavoured then to observe a just mediocrity between vicious
Elevation, and creeping Lowness; I have contained my self in
Narration, and left my self free in Orations and in Passions, and
without speaking as extravagants and the vulgar, I have la