PREFACE

TO THE READER.

IF the poets of old ever sang fittingly,
There are a thousand senses of men, a thousand differences of heads,
we certainly see this proven to the highest degree in this age of ours, in which, amidst such a great multitude of those suffering from the itch to write—just as a certain uncontrolled fervor of intellects spreads its forces far and wide—so too does a certain I-know-not-what itch for barely tolerable ἀντιτεχνίας (rivalry in art) associated with it, stir the hearts of some in a wondrous manner, I will not say in investigating the hidden [things of] na-