and though I, moved by a false and idle taste, have read the beginning of almost every one that has ever been published, I have never been able to read any from beginning to end, because it seems to me they are all essentially the same, and one is no different from another. In my opinion, this kind of writing and composition belongs to the genre called Milesian tales,5 which are foolish stories meant only to delight and not to teach, unlike moral tales, which delight and teach at the same time.
