“In the seventh place, I may reckon his book _De Sapientia
Veterum_, written by him in Latin, and set forth a second
time with enlargement; and translated into English by Sir
Arthur Gorges; a book in which the sages of former times are
rendered more wise than it may be they were, by so dexterous an
interpreter of their fables. It is this book which Mr. Sandys
means, in those words which he hath put before his notes on the
Metamorphosis of Ovid. ‘Of modern writers, I have received the
greatest light from Geraldus, Pontanus, Ficinus, Vives, Comes,
Scaliger, Sabinus, Pierius, and the crown of the latter, the
Viscount of St. Albans.’
“It is true, the design of this book was instruction in natural
and civil matters, either couched by the ancients under those
fictions, or rather made to seem to be so by his lordship’s wit,
in the opening and applying of them. But because the first ground
of it is poetical story, therefore, let it have this place till a
fitter be found for it.”