A people newly awakened to literary curiosity, being yet unacquainted with the true state of things, knows not how to judge of that which is proposed as its resemblance.

Whatever is remote from common appearances is always welcome to vulgar, as to childish credulity; and of a country unenlightened by learning, the whole people is the vulgar.

The study of those who then aspired to plebeian learning was laid out upon adventures, giants, dragons, and enchantments.

_The Death of Arthur was_ the favourite volume.
The mind, which has feasted on the luxurious wonders of fiction, has no taste of the insipidity of truth.

A play which imitated only the common occurrences of the world, would, upon the admirers of _Palmerin_ and _Guy_ of _Warwick_, have made little impression; he that wrote for such an audience was under the necessity of looking round for strange events and fabulous transactions, and that incredibility, by which maturer knowledge is offended, was the chief recommendation of writings, to unskilful curiosity.
Our authour's plots are generally borrowed from novels, and it is reasonable to suppose, that he chose the most popular, such as were read by many, and related by more; for his audience could not have followed him through the intricacies of the drama, had they not held the thread of the story in their hands.
The stories, which we now find only in remoter authours, were in his time accessible and familiar.