This is mere poetry to us, and very fine it is; but to him it was poetry, and religion, and beauty, and gravity and hushing awe, and a path as from one world to another.” […] “I am not ignorant,” he says, “how uncertain fiction is, and how liable to be wrested to this or that sense, nor how prevalent wit and discourse are, so as ingeniously to apply such meanings as were not thought of originally; but let not the follies and license of a few lessen the esteem due to parables; for that would be profane and bold, since religion delights in such veils and shadows: but, reflecting on human wisdom, I ingenuously confess my real opinion is, that ‌ mystery and allegory were from the original intended in many fables of the ancient poets, this appears apt and conspicuous to me; whether ravished with a veneration for antiquity, or because I find such coherence in the similitude with the things signified, in the very texture of the fable, and in the propriety of the names which are given to the persons or actors in the fables; and no man can positively deny that this was the sense proposed from the beginning, and industriously veiled in this manner… No one should be moved, if he sometimes finds any addition for the sake of history, or by way of embellishment; or if chronology should happen to be confounded, or if part of one fable should be transferred to another, and a new allegory introduced: for these were all necessary, and to be expected, seeing they are the inventions of men of different ages, and who writ to different ends; some with a view to the nature of things and others to civil affairs.