Parasiti ad mensam.—These are flatterers for their bread, that praise all my oraculous lord does or says, be it true or false; invent tales that shall please; make baits for his lordship's ears; and if they be not received in what they offer at, they shift a point of the compass, and turn their tale, presently tack about, deny what they confessed, and confess what they denied; fit their discourse to the persons and occasions. What they snatch up and devour at one table, utter at another; and grow suspected of the master, hated of the servants, while they inquire, and reprehend, and compound, and dilate business of the house they have nothing to do with. They praise my lord's wine and the sauce he likes; observe the cook and bottle-man; while they stand in my lord's favour, speak for a pension for them, but pound them to dust upon my lord's least distaste, or change of his palate.

How much better is it to be silent, or at least to speak sparingly! for it is not enough to speak good, but timely things. If a man be asked a question, to answer; but to repeat the question before he answer is well, that he be sure to understand it, to avoid absurdity; for it is less dishonour to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused, the understanding is not. And in things unknown to a man, not to give his opinion, lest by the affectation of knowing too much he lose the credit he hath, by speaking or knowing the wrong way what he utters. Nor seek to get his patron's favour by embarking himself in the factions of the family, to inquire after domestic simulties, their sports or affections. They are an odious and vile kind of creatures, that fly about the house all day, and picking up the filth of the house like pies or swallows, carry it to their nest (the lord's ears), and oftentimes report the lies they have feigned for what they have seen and heard,

Imo serviles.—These are called instruments of grace and power with great persons, but they are indeed the organs of their impotency, and marks of weakness. For sufficient lords are able to make these discoveries themselves. Neither will an honourable person inquire who eats and drinks together, what that man plays, whom this man loves, with whom such a one walks, what discourse they hold, who sleeps with whom. They are base and servile natures that busy themselves about these disquisitions. How often have I seen (and worthily) these censors of the family undertaken by some honest rustic and cudgelled thriftily! These are commonly the off-scouring and dregs of men that do these things, or calumniate others; yet I know not truly which is worse—he that maligns all, or that praises all. There is as a vice in praising, and as frequent, as in detracting.

It pleased your lordship of late to ask my opinion touching the education of your sons, and especially to the advancement of their studies. To which, though I returned somewhat for the present, which rather manifested a will in me than gave any just resolution to the thing propounded, I have upon better cogitation called those aids about me, both of mind and memory, which shall venture my thoughts clearer, if not fuller, to your lordship's demand. I confess, my lord, they will seem but petty and minute things I shall offer to you, being writ for children, and of them. But studies have their infancy as well as creatures. We see in men even the strongest compositions had their beginnings from milk and the cradle; and the wisest tarried sometimes about apting their mouths to letters and syllables. In their education, therefore, the care must be the greater had of their beginnings, to know, examine, and weigh their natures; which, though they be proner in some children to some disciplines, yet are they naturally prompt to taste all by degrees, and with change. For change is a kind of refreshing in studies, and infuseth knowledge by way of recreation. Thence the school itself is called a play or game, and all letters are so best taught to scholars. They should not be affrighted or deterred in their entry, but drawn on with exercise and emulation. A youth should not be made to hate study before he know the causes to love it, or taste the bitterness before the sweet; but called on and allured, entreated and praised—yea, when he deserves it not. For which cause I wish them sent to the best school, and a public, which I think the best. Your lordship, I fear, hardly hears of that, as willing to breed them in your eye and at home, and doubting their manners may be corrupted abroad. They are in more danger in your own family, among ill servants (allowing they be safe in their schoolmaster), than amongst a thousand boys, however immodest. Would we did not spoil our own children, and overthrow their manners ourselves by too much indulgence! To breed them at home is to breed them in a shade, whereas in a school they have the light and heat of the sun. They are used and accustomed to things and men. When they come forth into the common-wealth, they find nothing new, or to seek. They have made their friendships and aids, some to last their age. They hear what is commanded to others as well as themselves; much approved, much corrected; all which they bring to their own store and use, and learn as much as they hear. Eloquence would be but a poor thing if we should only converse with singulars, speak but man and man together. Therefore I like no private breeding. I would send them where their industry should be daily increased by praise, and that kindled by emulation. It is a good thing to inflame the mind; and though ambition itself be a vice, it is often the cause of great virtue. Give me that wit whom praise excites, glory puts on, or disgrace grieves; he is to be nourished with ambition, pricked forward with honour, checked with reprehension, and never to be suspected of sloth. Though he be given to play, it is a sign of spirit and liveliness, so there be a mean had of their sports and relaxations. And from the rod or ferule I would have them free, as from the menace of them; for it is both deformed and servile.

De stylo, et optimo scribendi genere.—For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries—to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style; in style to consider what ought to be written, and after what manner. He must first think and excogitate his matter, then choose his words, and examine the weight of either. Then take care, in placing and ranking both matter and words, that the composition be comely; and to do this with diligence and often. No matter how slow the style be at first, so it be laboured and accurate; seek the best, and be not glad of the froward conceits, or first words, that offer themselves to us; but judge of what we invent, and order what we approve. Repeat often what we have formerly written; which beside that it helps the consequence, and makes the juncture better, it quickens the heat of imagination, that often cools in the time of setting down, and gives it new strength, as if it grew lustier by the going back; as we see in the contention of leaping, they jump farthest that fetch their race largest; or, as in throwing a dart or javelin, we force back our arms to make our loose the stronger. Yet, if we have a fair gale of wind, I forbid not the steering out of our sail, so the favour of the gale deceive us not. For all that we invent doth please us in conception of birth, else we would never set it down. But the safest is to return to our judgment, and handle over again those things the easiness of which might make them justly suspected. So did the best writers in their beginnings; they imposed upon themselves care and industry; they did nothing rashly: they obtained first to write well, and then custom made it easy and a habit. By little and little their matter showed itself to them more plentifully; their words answered, their composition followed; and all, as in a well-ordered family, presented itself in the place. So that the sum of all is, ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing yet, when we think we have got the faculty, it is even then good to resist it, as to give a horse a check sometimes with a bit, which doth not so much stop his course as stir his mettle. Again, whether a man's genius is best able to reach thither, it should more and more contend, lift and dilate itself, as men of low stature raise themselves on their toes, and so ofttimes get even, if not eminent. Besides, as it is fit for grown and able writers to stand of themselves, and work with their own strength, to trust and endeavour by their own faculties, so it is fit for the beginner and learner to study others and the best. For the mind and memory are more sharply exercised in comprehending another man's things than our own; and such as accustom themselves and are familiar with the best authors shall ever and anon find somewhat of them in themselves, and in the expression of their minds, even when they feel it not, be able to utter something like theirs, which hath an authority above their own. Nay, sometimes it is the reward of a man's study, the praise of quoting another man fitly; and though a man be more prone and able for one kind of writing than another, yet he must exercise all. For as in an instrument, so in style, there must be a harmony and consent of parts.

Praecipiendi modi.—I take this labour in teaching others, that they should not be always to be taught, and I would bring my precepts into practice, for rules are ever of less force and value than experiments; yet with this purpose, rather to show the right way to those that come after, than to detect any that have slipped before by error, and I hope it will be more profitable. For men do more willingly listen, and with more favour, to precept, than reprehension. Among divers opinions of an art, and most of them contrary in themselves, it is hard to make election; and, therefore, though a man cannot invent new things after so many, he may do a welcome work yet to help posterity to judge rightly of the old. But arts and precepts avail nothing, except Nature be beneficial and aiding. And therefore these things are no more written to a dull disposition, than rules of husbandry to a soil. No precepts will profit a fool, no more than beauty will the blind, or music the deaf. As we should take care that our style in writing be neither dry nor empty, we should look again it be not winding, or wanton with far-fetched descriptions; either is a vice. But that is worse which proceeds out of want, than that which riots out of plenty. The remedy of fruitfulness is easy, but no labour will help the contrary; I will like and praise some things in a young writer which yet, if he continue in, I cannot but justly hate him for the same. There is a time to be given all things for maturity, and that even your country husband-man can teach, who to a young plant will not put the pruning-knife, because it seems to fear the iron, as not able to admit the scar. No more would I tell a green writer all his faults, lest I should make him grieve and faint, and at last despair; for nothing doth more hurt than to make him so afraid of all things as he can endeavour nothing. Therefore youth ought to be instructed betimes, and in the best things; for we hold those longest we take soonest, as the first scent of a vessel lasts, and the tint the wool first receives; therefore a master should temper his own powers, and descend to the other's infirmity. If you pour a glut of water upon a bottle, it receives little of it; but with a funnel, and by degrees, you shall fill many of them, and spill little of your own; to their capacity they will all receive and be full. And as it is fit to read the best authors to youth first, so let them be of the openest and clearest. {106a} As Livy before Sallust, Sidney before Donne; and beware of letting them taste Gower or Chaucer at first, lest, falling too much in love with antiquity, and not apprehending the weight, they grow rough and barren in language only. When their judgments are firm, and out of danger, let them read both the old and the new; but no less take heed that their new flowers and sweetness do not as much corrupt as the others' dryness and squalor, if they choose not carefully. Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language; yet I would have him read for his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius. The reading of Homer and Virgil is counselled by Quintilian as the best way of informing youth and confirming man. For, besides that the mind is raised with the height and sublimity of such a verse, it takes spirit from the greatness of the matter, and is tinctured with the best things. Tragic and lyric poetry is good, too, and comic with the best, if the manners of the reader be once in safety. In the Greek poets, as also in Plautus, we shall see the economy and disposition of poems better observed than in Terence; and the latter, who thought the sole grace and virtue of their fable the sticking in of sentences, as ours do the forcing in of jests.

Fals. querel. fugiend. Platonis peregrinatio in Italiam.—We should not protect our sloth with the patronage of difficulty. It is a false quarrel against Nature, that she helps understanding but in a few, when the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if they would take the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run, &c., which if they lose, it is through their own sluggishness, and by that means become her prodigies, not her children. I confess, Nature in children is more patient of labour in study than in age; for the sense of the pain, the judgment of the labour is absent; they do not measure what they have done. And it is the thought and consideration that affects us more than the weariness itself. Plato was not content with the learning that Athens could give him, but sailed into Italy, for Pythagoras' knowledge: and yet not thinking himself sufficiently informed, went into Egypt, to the priests, and learned their mysteries. He laboured, so must we. Many things may be learned together, and performed in one point of time; as musicians exercise their memory, their voice, their fingers, and sometimes their head and feet at once. And so a preacher, in the invention of matter, election of words, composition of gesture, look, pronunciation, motion, useth all these faculties at once: and if we can express this variety together, why should not divers studies, at divers hours, delight, when the variety is able alone to refresh and repair us? As, when a man is weary of writing, to read; and then again of reading, to write. Wherein, howsoever we do many things, yet are we (in a sort) still fresh to what we begin; we are recreated with change, as the stomach is with meats. But some will say this variety breeds confusion, and makes, that either we lose all, or hold no more than the last. Why do we not then persuade husbandmen that they should not till land, help it with marl, lime, and compost? plant hop-gardens, prune trees, look to bee-hives, rear sheep, and all other cattle at once? It is easier to do many things and continue, than to do one thing long.

Praecept. element.—It is not the passing through these learnings that hurts us, but the dwelling and sticking about them. To descend to those extreme anxieties and foolish cavils of grammarians, is able to break a wit in pieces, being a work of manifold misery and vainness, to be elementarii senes. Yet even letters are, as it were, the bank of words, and restore themselves to an author as the pawns of language: but talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks; and out of the observation, knowledge, and the use of things, many writers perplex their readers and hearers with mere nonsense. Their writings need sunshine. Pure and neat language I love, yet plain and customary. A barbarous phrase has often made me out of love with a good sense, and doubtful writing hath wracked me beyond my patience. The reason why a poet is said that he ought to have all knowledges is, that he should not be ignorant of the most, especially of those he will handle. And indeed, when the attaining of them is possible, it were a sluggish and base thing to despair; for frequent imitation of anything becomes a habit quickly. If a man should prosecute as much as could be said of everything, his work would find no end.

De orationis dignitate. [Greek text].—Metaphora. Speech is the only benefit man hath to express his excellency of mind above other creatures. It is the instrument of society; therefore Mercury, who is the president of language, is called deorum hominumque interpres. {110a} In all speech, words and sense are as the body and the soul. The sense is as the life and soul of language, without which all words are dead. Sense is wrought out of experience, the knowledge of human life and actions, or of the liberal arts, which the Greeks called [Greek text]. Words are the people's, yet there is a choice of them to be made; for verborum delectus origo est eloquentiae. {111a} They are to be chosen according to the persons we make speak, or the things we speak of. Some are of the camp, some of the council-board, some of the shop, some of the sheepcote, some of the pulpit, some of the Bar, &c. And herein is seen their elegance and propriety, when we use them fitly and draw them forth to their just strength and nature by way of translation or metaphor. But in this translation we must only serve necessity (nam temere nihil transfertur a prudenti) {111b} or commodity, which is a kind of necessity: that is, when we either absolutely want a word to express by, and that is necessity; or when we have not so fit a word, and that is commodity; as when we avoid loss by it, and escape obsceneness, and gain in the grace and property which helps significance. Metaphors far-fetched hinder to be understood; and affected, lose their grace. Or when the person fetcheth his translations from a wrong place as if a privy councillor should at the table take his metaphor from a dicing-house, or ordinary, or a vintner's vault; or a justice of peace draw his similitudes from the mathematics, or a divine from a bawdy house, or taverns; or a gentleman of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, or the Midland, should fetch all the illustrations to his country neighbours from shipping, and tell them of the main-sheet and the bowline. Metaphors are thus many times deformed, as in him that said, Castratam morte Africani rempublicam; and another, Stercus curiae Glauciam, and Cana nive conspuit Alpes. All attempts that are new in this kind, are dangerous, and somewhat hard, before they be softened with use. A man coins not a new word without some peril and less fruit; for if it happen to be received, the praise is but moderate; if refused, the scorn is assured. Yet we must adventure; for things at first hard and rough are by use made tender and gentle. It is an honest error that is committed, following great chiefs.

Consuetudo.—Perspicuitas, Venustas.—Authoritas.—Virgil.— Lucretius.—Chaucerism.—Paronomasia.—Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money. But we must not be too frequent with the mint, every day coining, nor fetch words from the extreme and utmost ages; since the chief virtue of a style is perspicuity, and nothing so vicious in it as to need an interpreter. Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes; for they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win themselves a kind of grace like newness. But the eldest of the present, and newness of the past language, is the best. For what was the ancient language, which some men so dote upon, but the ancient custom? Yet when I name custom, I understand not the vulgar custom; for that were a precept no less dangerous to language than life, if we should speak or live after the manners of the vulgar: but that I call custom of speech, which is the consent of the learned; as custom of life, which is the consent of the good. Virgil was most loving of antiquity; yet how rarely doth he insert aquai and pictai! Lucretius is scabrous and rough in these; he seeks them: as some do Chaucerisms with us, which were better expunged and banished. Some words are to be culled out for ornament and colour, as we gather flowers to strew houses or make garlands; but they are better when they grow to our style; as in a meadow, where, though the mere grass and greenness delight, yet the variety of flowers doth heighten and beautify. Marry, we must not play or riot too much with them, as in Paronomasies; nor use too swelling or ill-sounding words! Quae per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt. {114a} It is true, there is no sound but shall find some lovers, as the bitterest confections are grateful to some palates. Our composition must be more accurate in the beginning and end than in the midst, and in the end more than in the beginning; for through the midst the stream bears us. And this is attained by custom, more than care of diligence. We must express readily and fully, not profusely. There is difference between a liberal and prodigal hand. As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it, is of no less praise, when the argument doth ask it. Either of them hath their fitness in the place. A good man always profits by his endeavour, by his help, yea, when he is absent; nay, when he is dead, by his example and memory. So good authors in their style: a strict and succinct style is that where you can take away nothing without loss, and that loss to be manifest.

De Stylo.—Tracitus.—The Laconic.—Suetonius.—Seneca and Fabianus.—The brief style is that which expresseth much in little; the concise style, which expresseth not enough, but leaves somewhat to be understood; the abrupt style, which hath many breaches, and doth not seem to end, but fall. The congruent and harmonious fitting of parts in a sentence hath almost the fastening and force of knitting and connection; as in stones well squared, which will rise strong a great way without mortar.

Periodi.—Obscuritas offundit tenebras.—Superlatio.—Periods are beautiful when they are not too long; for so they have their strength too, as in a pike or javelin. As we must take the care that our words and sense be clear, so if the obscurity happen through the hearer's or reader's want of understanding, I am not to answer for them, no more than for their not listening or marking; I must neither find them ears nor mind. But a man cannot put a word so in sense but something about it will illustrate it, if the writer understand himself; for order helps much to perspicuity, as confusion hurts. (Rectitudo lucem adfert; obliquitas et circumductio offuscat. {116a}) We should therefore speak what we can the nearest way, so as we keep our gait, not leap; for too short may as well be not let into the memory, as too long not kept in. Whatsoever loseth the grace and clearness, converts into a riddle; the obscurity is marked, but not the value. That perisheth, and is passed by, like the pearl in the fable. Our style should be like a skein of silk, to be carried and found by the right thread, not ravelled and perplexed; then all is a knot, a heap. There are words that do as much raise a style as others can depress it. Superlation and over-muchness amplifies; it may be above faith, but never above a mean. It was ridiculous in Cestius, when he said of Alexander:

"Fremit oceanus, quasi indignetur, quod terras relinquas." {117a}

But propitiously from Virgil:

"Credas innare revulsas Cycladas." {117b}

He doth not say it was so, but seemed to be so. Although it be somewhat incredible, that is excused before it be spoken. But there are hyperboles which will become one language, that will by no means admit another. As Eos esse P. R. exercitus, qui caelum possint perrumpere, {118a} who would say with us, but a madman? Therefore we must consider in every tongue what is used, what received. Quintilian warns us, that in no kind of translation, or metaphor, or allegory, we make a turn from what we began; as if we fetch the original of our metaphor from sea and billows, we end not in flames and ashes: it is a most foul inconsequence. Neither must we draw out our allegory too long, lest either we make ourselves obscure, or fall into affectation, which is childish. But why do men depart at all from the right and natural ways of speaking? sometimes for necessity, when we are driven, or think it fitter, to speak that in obscure words, or by circumstance, which uttered plainly would offend the hearers. Or to avoid obsceneness, or sometimes for pleasure, and variety, as travellers turn out of the highway, drawn either by the commodity of a footpath, or the delicacy or freshness of the fields. And all this is called [Greek text] or figured language.

Oratio imago animi.—Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech. Nay, it is likened to a man; and as we consider feature and composition in a man, so words in language; in the greatness, aptness, sound structure, and harmony of it.

Structura et statura, sublimis, humilis, pumila.—Some men are tall and big, so some language is high and great. Then the words are chosen, their sound ample, the composition full, the absolution plenteous, and poured out, all grave, sinewy, and strong. Some are little and dwarfs; so of speech, it is humble and low, the words poor and flat, the members and periods thin and weak, without knitting or number.

Mediocris plana et placida.—The middle are of a just stature. There the language is plain and pleasing; even without stopping, round without swelling: all well-turned, composed, elegant, and accurate.

Vitiosa oratio, vasta—tumens—enormis—affectata—abjecta.—The vicious language is vast and gaping, swelling and irregular: when it contends to be high, full of rock, mountain, and pointedness; as it affects to be low, it is abject, and creeps, full of bogs and holes. And according to their subject these styles vary, and lose their names: for that which is high and lofty, declaring excellent matter, becomes vast and tumorous, speaking of petty and inferior things; so that which was even and apt in a mean and plain subject, will appear most poor and humble in a high argument. Would you not laugh to meet a great councillor of State in a flat cap, with his trunk hose, and a hobbyhorse cloak, his gloves under his girdle, and yond haberdasher in a velvet gown, furred with sables? There is a certain latitude in these things, by which we find the degrees.

Figura.—The next thing to the stature, is the figure and feature in language—that is, whether it be round and straight, which consists of short and succinct periods, numerous and polished; or square and firm, which is to have equal and strong parts everywhere answerable, and weighed.

Cutis sive cortex. Compositio.—The third is the skin and coat, which rests in the well-joining, cementing, and coagmentation of words; whenas it is smooth, gentle, and sweet, like a table upon which you may run your finger without rubs, and your nail cannot find a joint; not horrid, rough, wrinkled, gaping, or chapped: after these, the flesh, blood, and bones come in question.

Carnosa—adipata—redundans.—We say it is a fleshy style, when there is much periphrasis, and circuit of words; and when with more than enough, it grows fat and corpulent: arvina orationis, full of suet and tallow. It hath blood and juice when the words are proper and apt, their sound sweet, and the phrase neat and picked—oratio uncta, et bene pasta. But where there is redundancy, both the blood and juice are faulty and vicious:- Redundat sanguine, quia multo plus dicit, quam necesse est. Juice in language is somewhat less than blood; for if the words be but becoming and signifying, and the sense gentle, there is juice; but where that wanteth, the language is thin, flagging, poor, starved, scarce covering the bone, and shows like stones in a sack.

Jejuna, macilenta, strigosa.—Ossea, et nervosa.—Some men, to avoid redundancy, run into that; and while they strive to have no ill blood or juice, they lose their good. There be some styles, again, that have not less blood, but less flesh and corpulence. These are bony and sinewy; Ossa habent, et nervos.

Notae domini Sti. Albani de doctrin. intemper.—Dictator.— Aristoteles.—It was well noted by the late Lord St. Albans, that the study of words is the first distemper of learning; vain matter the second; and a third distemper is deceit, or the likeness of truth: imposture held up by credulity. All these are the cobwebs of learning, and to let them grow in us is either sluttish or foolish. Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author a dictator, as the schools have done Aristotle. The damage is infinite knowledge receives by it; for to many things a man should owe but a temporary belief, and suspension of his own judgment, not an absolute resignation of himself, or a perpetual captivity. Let Aristotle and others have their dues; but if we can make farther discoveries of truth and fitness than they, why are we envied? Let us beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish or deface; we may improve, but not augment. By discrediting falsehood, truth grows in request. We must not go about, like men anguished and perplexed, for vicious affectation of praise, but calmly study the separation of opinions, find the errors have intervened, awake antiquity, call former times into question; but make no parties with the present, nor follow any fierce undertakers, mingle no matter of doubtful credit with the simplicity of truth, but gently stir the mould about the root of the question, and avoid all digladiations, facility of credit, or superstitious simplicity, seek the consonancy and concatenation of truth; stoop only to point of necessity, and what leads to convenience. Then make exact animadversion where style hath degenerated, where flourished and thrived in choiceness of phrase, round and clean composition of sentence, sweet falling of the clause, varying an illustration by tropes and figures, weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, and depth of judgment. This is monte potiri, to get the hill; for no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level.

De optimo scriptore.—Cicero.—Now that I have informed you in the knowing of these things, let me lead you by the hand a little farther, in the direction of the use, and make you an able writer by practice. The conceits of the mind are pictures of things, and the tongue is the interpreter of those pictures. The order of God's creatures in themselves is not only admirable and glorious, but eloquent: then he who could apprehend the consequence of things in their truth, and utter his apprehensions as truly, were the best writer or speaker. Therefore Cicero said much, when he said, Dicere recte nemo potest, nisi qui prudenter intelligit. {124a} The shame of speaking unskilfully were small if the tongue only thereby were disgraced; but as the image of a king in his seal ill-represented is not so much a blemish to the wax, or the signet that sealed it, as to the prince it representeth, so disordered speech is not so much injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune, whose words do jar; nor his reason in frame, whose sentence is preposterous; nor his elocution clear and perfect, whose utterance breaks itself into fragments and uncertainties. Were it not a dishonour to a mighty prince, to have the majesty of his embassage spoiled by a careless ambassador? and is it not as great an indignity, that an excellent conceit and capacity, by the indiligence of an idle tongue, should be disgraced? Negligent speech doth not only discredit the person of the speaker, but it discrediteth the opinion of his reason and judgment; it discrediteth the force and uniformity of the matter and substance. If it be so then in words, which fly and escape censure, and where one good phrase begs pardon for many incongruities and faults, how shall he then be thought wise whose penning is thin and shallow? how shall you look for wit from him whose leisure and head, assisted with the examination of his eyes, yield you no life or sharpness in his writing?

De stylo epistolari.—Inventio.—In writing there is to be regarded the invention and the fashion. For the invention, that ariseth upon your business, whereof there can be no rules of more certainty, or precepts of better direction given, than conjecture can lay down from the several occasions of men's particular lives and vocations: but sometimes men make baseness of kindness: As "I could not satisfy myself till I had discharged my remembrance, and charged my letters with commendation to you;" or, "My business is no other than to testify my love to you, and to put you in mind of my willingness to do you all kind offices;" or, "Sir, have you leisure to descend to the remembering of that assurance you have long possessed in your servant, and upon your next opportunity make him happy with some commands from you?" or the like; that go a-begging for some meaning, and labour to be delivered of the great burden of nothing. When you have invented, and that your business be matter, and not bare form, or mere ceremony, but some earnest, then are you to proceed to the ordering of it, and digesting the parts, which is had out of two circumstances. One is the understanding of the persons to whom you are to write; the other is the coherence of your sentence; for men's capacity to weigh what will be apprehended with greatest attention or leisure; what next regarded and longed for especially, and what last will leave satisfaction, and (as it were) the sweetest memorial and belief of all that is passed in his understanding whom you write to. For the consequence of sentences, you must be sure that every clause do give the cue one to the other, and be bespoken ere it come. So much for invention and order.

Modus.—1. Brevitas.—Now for fashion: it consists in four things, which are qualities of your style. The first is brevity; for they must not be treatises or discourses (your letters) except it be to learned men. And even among them there is a kind of thrift and saving of words. Therefore you are to examine the clearest passages of your understanding, and through them to convey the sweetest and most significant words you can devise, that you may the easier teach them the readiest way to another man's apprehension, and open their meaning fully, roundly, and distinctly, so as the reader may not think a second view cast away upon your letter. And though respect be a part following this, yet now here, and still I must remember it, if you write to a man, whose estate and sense, as senses, you are familiar with, you may the bolder (to set a task to his brain) venture on a knot. But if to your superior, you are bound to measure him in three farther points: first, with interest in him; secondly, his capacity in your letters; thirdly, his leisure to peruse them. For your interest or favour with him, you are to be the shorter or longer, more familiar or submiss, as he will afford you time. For his capacity, you are to be quicker and fuller of those reaches and glances of wit or learning, as he is able to entertain them. For his leisure, you are commanded to the greater briefness, as his place is of greater discharges and cares. But with your betters, you are not to put riddles of wit, by being too scarce of words; not to cause the trouble of making breviates by writing too riotous and wastingly. Brevity is attained in matter by avoiding idle compliments, prefaces, protestations, parentheses, superfluous circuit of figures and digressions: in the composition, by omitting conjunctions [not only, but also; both the one and the other, whereby it cometh to pass] and such like idle particles, that have no great business in a serious letter but breaking of sentences, as oftentimes a short journey is made long by unnessary baits.

Quintilian.—But, as Quintilian saith, there is a briefness of the parts sometimes that makes the whole long: "As I came to the stairs, I took a pair of oars, they launched out, rowed apace, I landed at the court gate, I paid my fare, went up to the presence, asked for my lord, I was admitted." All this is but, "I went to the court and spake with my lord." This is the fault of some Latin writers within these last hundred years of my reading, and perhaps Seneca may be appeached of it; I accuse him not.

2. Perspicuitas.—The next property of epistolary style is perspicuity, and is oftentimes by affectation of some wit ill angled for, or ostentation of some hidden terms of art. Few words they darken speech, and so do too many; as well too much light hurteth the eyes, as too little; and a long bill of chancery confounds the understanding as much as the shortest note; therefore, let not your letters be penned like English statutes, and this is obtained. These vices are eschewed by pondering your business well and distinctly concerning yourself, which is much furthered by uttering your thoughts, and letting them as well come forth to the light and judgment of your own outward senses as to the censure of other men's ears; for that is the reason why many good scholars speak but fumblingly; like a rich man, that for want of particular note and difference can bring you no certain ware readily out of his shop. Hence it is that talkative shallow men do often content the hearers more than the wise. But this may find a speedier redress in writing, where all comes under the last examination of the eyes. First, mind it well, then pen it, then examine it, then amend it, and you may be in the better hope of doing reasonably well. Under this virtue may come plainness, which is not to be curious in the order as to answer a letter, as if you were to answer to interrogatories. As to the first, first; and to the second, secondly, &c. but both in method to use (as ladies do in their attire) a diligent kind of negligence, and their sportive freedom; though with some men you are not to jest, or practise tricks; yet the delivery of the most important things may be carried with such a grace, as that it may yield a pleasure to the conceit of the reader. There must be store, though no excess of terms; as if you are to name store, sometimes you may call it choice, sometimes plenty, sometimes copiousness, or variety; but ever so, that the word which comes in lieu have not such difference of meaning as that it may put the sense of the first in hazard to be mistaken. You are not to cast a ring for the perfumed terms of the time, as accommodation, complement, spirit &c., but use them properly in their place, as others.

3. Vigor—There followeth life and quickness, which is the strength and sinews, as it were, of your penning by pretty sayings, similitudes, and conceits; allusions from known history, or other common-place, such as are in the Courtier, and the second book of Cicero De Oratore.

4. Discretio.—The last is, respect to discern what fits yourself, him to whom you write, and that which you handle, which is a quality fit to conclude the rest, because it doth include all. And that must proceed from ripeness of judgment, which, as one truly saith, is gotten by four means, God, nature, diligence, and conversation. Serve the first well, and the rest will serve you.

De Poetica.—We have spoken sufficiently of oratory, let us now make a diversion to poetry. Poetry, in the primogeniture, had many peccant humours, and is made to have more now, through the levity and inconstancy of men's judgments. Whereas, indeed, it is the most prevailing eloquence, and of the most exalted caract. Now the discredits and disgraces are many it hath received through men's study of depravation or calumny; their practice being to give it diminution of credit, by lessening the professor's estimation, and making the age afraid of their liberty; and the age is grown so tender of her fame, as she calls all writings aspersions.

That is the state word, the phrase of court (placentia college), which some call Parasites place, the Inn of Ignorance.

D. Hieronymus.—Whilst I name no persons, but deride follies, why should any man confess or betray himself why doth not that of S. Hierome come into their mind, Ubi generalis est de vitiis disputatio, ibi nullius esse personae injuriam? {133a} Is it such an inexpiable crime in poets to tax vices generally, and no offence in them, who, by their exception confess they have committed them particularly? Are we fallen into those times that we must not -

"Auriculas teneras mordaci rodere vero." {133b}

Remedii votum semper verius erat, quam spes. {133c}—Sexus faemin.— If men may by no means write freely, or speak truth, but when it offends not, why do physicians cure with sharp medicines, or corrosives? is not the same equally lawful in the cure of the mind that is in the cure of the body? Some vices, you will say, are so foul that it is better they should be done than spoken. But they that take offence where no name, character, or signature doth blazon them seem to me like affected as women, who if they hear anything ill spoken of the ill of their sex, are presently moved, as if the contumely respected their particular; and on the contrary, when they hear good of good women, conclude that it belongs to them all. If I see anything that toucheth me, shall I come forth a betrayer of myself presently? No, if I be wise, I'll dissemble it; if honest, I'll avoid it, lest I publish that on my own forehead which I saw there noted without a title. A man that is on the mending hand will either ingenuously confess or wisely dissemble his disease. And the wise and virtuous will never think anything belongs to themselves that is written, but rejoice that the good are warned not to be such; and the ill to leave to be such. The person offended hath no reason to be offended with the writer, but with himself; and so to declare that properly to belong to him which was so spoken of all men, as it could be no man's several, but his that would wilfully and desperately claim it. It sufficeth I know what kind of persons I displease, men bred in the declining and decay of virtue, betrothed to their own vices; that have abandoned or prostituted their good names; hungry and ambitious of infamy, invested in all deformity, enthralled to ignorance and malice, of a hidden and concealed malignity, and that hold a concomitancy with all evil.

What is a Poet?

Poeta.—A poet is that which by the Greeks is called [Greek text], a maker, or a feigner: his art, an art of imitation or feigning; expressing the life of man in fit measure, numbers, and harmony, according to Aristotle; from the word [Greek text], which signifies to make or feign. Hence he is called a poet, not he which writeth in measure only, but that feigneth and formeth a fable, and writes things like the truth. For the fable and fiction is, as it were, the form and soul of any poetical work or poem.

What mean, you by a Poem?

Poema.—A poem is not alone any work or composition of the poet's in many or few verses; but even one verse alone sometimes makes a perfect poem. As when AEneas hangs up and consecrates the arms of Abas with this inscription:-

"AEneas haec de Danais victoribus arma." {136a}

And calls it a poem or carmen. Such are those in Martial:-

"Omnia, Castor, emis: sic fiet, ut omnia vendas." {136b}

And -

"Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper." {136c}

Horatius.—Lucretius.—So were Horace's odes called Carmina, his lyric songs. And Lucretius designs a whole book in his sixth:-

"Quod in primo quoque carmine claret." {136d}

Epicum.—Dramaticum.—Lyricum.—Elegiacum.—Epigrammat.—And anciently all the oracles were called Carmina; or whatever sentence was expressed, were it much or little, it was called an Epic, Dramatic, Lyric, Elegiac, or Epigrammatic poem.

But how differs a Poem from what we call Poesy?

Poesis.—Artium regina.—Poet. differentiae.—Grammatic.—Logic.— Rhetoric.—Ethica.—A poem, as I have told you, is the work of the poet; the end and fruit of his labour and study. Poesy is his skill or craft of making; the very fiction itself, the reason or form of the work. And these three voices differ, as the thing done, the doing, and the doer; the thing feigned, the feigning, and the feigner; so the poem, the poesy, and the poet. Now the poesy is the habit or the art; nay, rather the queen of arts, which had her original from heaven, received thence from the Hebrews, and had in prime estimation with the Greeks transmitted to the Latins and all nations that professed civility. The study of it (if we will trust Aristotle) offers to mankind a certain rule and pattern of living well and happily, disposing us to all civil offices of society. If we will believe Tully, it nourisheth and instructeth our youth, delights our age, adorns our prosperity, comforts our adversity, entertains us at home, keeps us company abroad, travels with us, watches, divides the times of our earnest and sports, shares in our country recesses and recreations; insomuch as the wisest and best learned have thought her the absolute mistress of manners and nearest of kin to virtue. And whereas they entitle philosophy to be a rigid and austere poesy, they have, on the contrary, styled poesy a dulcet and gentle philosophy, which leads on and guides us by the hand to action with a ravishing delight and incredible sweetness. But before we handle the kinds of poems, with their special differences, or make court to the art itself, as a mistress, I would lead you to the knowledge of our poet by a perfect information what he is or should be by nature, by exercise, by imitation, by study, and so bring him down through the disciplines of grammar, logic, rhetoric, and the ethics, adding somewhat out of all, peculiar to himself, and worthy of your admittance or reception.

1. Ingenium.—Seneca.—Plato.—Aristotle.—Helicon.—Pegasus.— Parnassus.—Ovid.—First, we require in our poet or maker (for that title our language affords him elegantly with the Greek) a goodness of natural wit. For whereas all other arts consist of doctrine and precepts, the poet must be able by nature and instinct to pour out the treasure of his mind, and as Seneca saith, Aliquando secundum Anacreontem insanire jucundum esse; by which he understands the poetical rapture. And according to that of Plato, Frustra poeticas fores sui compos pulsavit. And of Aristotle, Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit. Nec potest grande aliquid, et supra caeteros loqui, nisi mota mens. Then it riseth higher, as by a divine instinct, when it contemns common and known conceptions. It utters somewhat above a mortal mouth. Then it gets aloft and flies away with his rider, whither before it was doubtful to ascend. This the poets understood by their Helicon, Pegasus, or Parnassus; and this made Ovid to boast,

"Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo Sedibus aethereis spiritus ille venit." {139a}

Lipsius.—Petron. in. Fragm.—And Lipsius to affirm, Scio, poetam neminem praestantem fuisse, sine parte quadam uberiore divinae aurae. And hence it is that the coming up of good poets (for I mind not mediocres or imos) is so thin and rare among us. Every beggarly corporation affords the State a mayor or two bailiffs yearly; but Solus rex, aut poeta, non quotannis nascitur. To this perfection of nature in our poet we require exercise of those parts, and frequent.

2. Exercitatio.—Virgil.—Scaliger.—Valer. Maximus.—Euripides.— Alcestis.—If his wit will not arrive suddenly at the dignity of the ancients, let him not yet fall out with it, quarrel, or be over hastily angry; offer to turn it away from study in a humour, but come to it again upon better cogitation; try another time with labour. If then it succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the forge and file again; torn it anew. There is no statute law of the kingdom bids you be a poet against your will or the first quarter; if it comes in a year or two, it is well. The common rhymers pour forth verses, such as they are, ex tempore; but there never comes from them one sense worth the life of a day. A rhymer and a poet are two things. It is said of the incomparable Virgil that he brought forth his verses like a bear, and after formed them with licking. Scaliger the father writes it of him, that he made a quantity of verses in the morning, which afore night he reduced to a less number. But that which Valerius Maximus hath left recorded of Euripides, the tragic poet, his answer to Alcestis, another poet, is as memorable as modest; who, when it was told to Alcestis that Euripides had in three days brought forth but three verses, and those with some difficulty and throes, Alcestis, glorying he could with ease have sent forth a hundred in the space, Euripides roundly replied, "Like enough; but here is the difference: thy verses will not last these three days, mine will to all time." Which was as much as to tell him he could not write a verse. I have met many of these rattles that made a noise and buzzed. They had their hum, and no more. Indeed, things wrote with labour deserve to be so read, and will last their age.

3. Imitatio.—Horatius.—Virgil.—Statius.—Homer.—Horat.— Archil.—Alcaeus, &c.—The third requisite in our poet or maker is imitation, to be able to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use. To make choice of one excellent man above the rest, and so to follow him till he grow very he, or so like him as the copy may be mistaken for the principal. Not as a creature that swallows what it takes in crude, raw, or undigested, but that feeds with an appetite, and hath a stomach to concoct, divide, and turn all into nourishment. Not to imitate servilely, as Horace saith, and catch at vices for virtue, but to draw forth out of the best and choicest flowers, with the bee, and turn all into honey, work it into one relish and savour; make our imitation sweet; observe how the best writers have imitated, and follow them. How Virgil and Statius have imitated Homer; how Horace, Archilochus; how Alcaeus, and the other lyrics; and so of the rest.

4. Lectio.—Parnassus.—Helicon.—Arscoron.—M. T. Cicero.— Simylus.—Stob.—Horat.—Aristot.—But that which we especially require in him is an exactness of study and multiplicity of reading, which maketh a full man, not alone enabling him to know the history or argument of a poem and to report it, but so to master the matter and style, as to show he knows how to handle, place, or dispose of either with elegancy when need shall be. And not think he can leap forth suddenly a poet by dreaming he hath been in Parnassus, or having washed his lips, as they say, in Helicon. There goes more to his making than so; for to nature, exercise, imitation, and study art must be added to make all these perfect. And though these challenge to themselves much in the making up of our maker, it is Art only can lead him to perfection, and leave him there in possession, as planted by her hand. It is the assertion of Tully, if to an excellent nature there happen an accession or conformation of learning and discipline, there will then remain somewhat noble and singular. For, as Simylus saith in Stobaeus, [Greek text], without art nature can never be perfect; and without nature art can claim no being. But our poet must beware that his study be not only to learn of himself; for he that shall affect to do that confesseth his ever having a fool to his master. He must read many, but ever the best and choicest; those that can teach him anything he must ever account his masters, and reverence. Among whom Horace and (he that taught him) Aristotle deserved to be the first in estimation. Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge—nay, the greatest philosopher the world ever had—for he noted the vices of all knowledges in all creatures, and out of many men's perfections in a science he formed still one art. So he taught us two offices together, how we ought to judge rightly of others, and what we ought to imitate specially in ourselves. But all this in vain without a natural wit and a poetical nature in chief. For no man, so soon as he knows this or reads it, shall be able to write the better; but as he is adapted to it by nature, he shall grow the perfecter writer. He must have civil prudence and eloquence, and that whole; not taken up by snatches or pieces in sentences or remnants when he will handle business or carry counsels, as if he came then out of the declaimer's gallery, or shadow furnished but out of the body of the State, which commonly is the school of men.

Virorum schola respub.—Lysippus.—Apelles.—Naevius.—The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator, and expresseth all his virtues, though he be tied more to numbers, is his equal in ornament, and above him in his strengths. And (of the kind) the comic comes nearest; because in moving the minds of men, and stirring of affections (in which oratory shows, and especially approves her eminence), he chiefly excels. What figure of a body was Lysippus ever able to form with his graver, or Apelles to paint with his pencil, as the comedy to life expresseth so many and various affections of the mind? There shall the spectator see some insulting with joy, others fretting with melancholy, raging with anger, mad with love, boiling with avarice, undone with riot, tortured with expectation, consumed with fear; no perturbation in common life but the orator finds an example of it in the scene. And then for the elegancy of language, read but this inscription on the grave of a comic poet:

"Immortales mortales si fas esset fiere, Flerent divae Camoenae Naevium poetam; Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro, Obliti sunt Romae lingua loqui Latina." {146a}

L. AElius Stilo.—Plautus.—M. Varro.—Or that modester testimony given by Lucius AElius Stilo upon Plautus, who affirmed, "Musas, si Latine loqui voluissent, Plautino sermone fuisse loquuturas." And that illustrious judgment by the most learned M. Varro of him, who pronounced him the prince of letters and elegancy in the Roman language.

Sophocles.—I am not of that opinion to conclude a poet's liberty within the narrow limits of laws which either the grammarians or philosophers prescribe. For before they found out those laws there were many excellent poets that fulfilled them, amongst whom none more perfect than Sophocles, who lived a little before Aristotle.

Demosthenes.—Pericles.—Alcibiades.—Which of the Greeklings durst ever give precepts to Demosthenes? or to Pericles, whom the age surnamed Heavenly, because he seemed to thunder and lighten with his language? or to Alcibiades, who had rather Nature for his guide than Art for his master?

Aristotle.—But whatsoever nature at any time dictated to the most happy, or long exercise to the most laborious, that the wisdom and learning of Aristotle hath brought into an art, because he understood the causes of things; and what other men did by chance or custom he doth by reason; and not only found out the way not to err, but the short way we should take not to err.

Euripides.—Aristophanes.—Many things in Euripides hath Aristophanes wittily reprehended, not out of art, but out of truth. For Euripides is sometimes peccant, as he is most times perfect. But judgment when it is greatest, if reason doth not accompany it, is not ever absolute.

Cens. Scal. in Lil. Germ.—Horace.—To judge of poets is only the faculty of poets; and not of all poets, but the best. Nemo infelicius de poetis judicavit, quam qui de poetis scripsit. {148a} But some will say critics are a kind of tinkers, that make more faults than they mend ordinarily. See their diseases and those of grammarians. It is true, many bodies are the worse for the meddling with; and the multitude of physicians hath destroyed many sound patients with their wrong practice. But the office of a true critic or censor is, not to throw by a letter anywhere, or damn an innocent syllable, but lay the words together, and amend them; judge sincerely of the author and his matter, which is the sign of solid and perfect learning in a man. Such was Horace, an author of much civility, and (if any one among the heathen can be) the best master both of virtue and wisdom; an excellent and true judge upon cause and reason, not because he thought so, but because he knew so out of use and experience.

Cato, the grammarian, a defender of Lucilius. {149a}

"Cato grammaticus, Latina syren, Qui solus legit, et facit poetas."

Quintilian of the same heresy, but rejected. {149b}

Horace, his judgment of Choerillus defended against Joseph Scaliger. {149c} And of Laberius against Julius. {149d}

But chiefly his opinion of Plautus {149e} vindicated against many that are offended, and say it is a hard censure upon the parent of all conceit and sharpness. And they wish it had not fallen from so great a master and censor in the art, whose bondmen knew better how to judge of Plautus than any that dare patronise the family of learning in this age; who could not be ignorant of the judgment of the times in which he lived, when poetry and the Latin language were at the height; especially being a man so conversant and inwardly familiar with the censures of great men that did discourse of these things daily amongst themselves. Again, a man so gracious and in high favour with the Emperor, as Augustus often called him his witty manling (for the littleness of his stature), and, if we may trust antiquity, had designed him for a secretary of estate, and invited him to the palace, which he modestly prayed off and refused.

Terence.—Menander. Horace did so highly esteem Terence's comedies, as he ascribes the art in comedy to him alone among the Latins, and joins him with Menander.

Now, let us see what may be said for either, to defend Horace's judgment to posterity and not wholly to condemn Plautus.

The parts of a comedy and tragedy.—The parts of a comedy are the same with a tragedy, and the end is partly the same, for they both delight and teach; the comics are called [Greek text], of the Greeks no less than the tragics.

Aristotle.—Plato.—Homer.—Nor is the moving of laughter always the end of comedy; that is rather a fowling for the people's delight, or their fooling. For, as Aristotle says rightly, the moving of laughter is a fault in comedy, a kind of turpitude that depraves some part of a man's nature without a disease. As a wry face without pain moves laughter, or a deformed vizard, or a rude clown dressed in a lady's habit and using her actions; we dislike and scorn such representations which made the ancient philosophers ever think laughter unfitting in a wise man. And this induced Plato to esteem of Homer as a sacrilegious person, because he presented the gods sometimes laughing. As also it is divinely said of Aristotle, that to seen ridiculous is a part of dishonesty, and foolish.

The wit of the old comedy.—So that what either in the words or sense of an author, or in the language or actions of men, is awry or depraved does strangely stir mean affections, and provoke for the most part to laughter. And therefore it was clear that all insolent and obscene speeches, jests upon the best men, injuries to particular persons, perverse and sinister sayings (and the rather unexpected) in the old comedy did move laughter, especially where it did imitate any dishonesty, and scurrility came forth in the place of wit, which, who understands the nature and genius of laughter cannot but perfectly know.

Aristophanes.—Plautus.—Of which Aristophanes affords an ample harvest, having not only outgone Plautus or any other in that kind, but expressed all the moods and figures of what is ridiculous oddly. In short, as vinegar is not accounted good until the wine be corrupted, so jests that are true and natural seldom raise laughter with the beast the multitude. They love nothing that is right and proper. The farther it runs from reason or possibility with them the better it is.

Socrates.—Theatrical wit.—What could have made them laugh, like to see Socrates presented, that example of all good life, honesty, and virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play the philosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a flea could skip geometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from the engine. This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishing a playhouse, invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it had savoured of equity, truth, perspicuity, and candour, to have tasten a wise or a learned palate,—spit it out presently! this is bitter and profitable: this instructs and would inform us: what need we know any thing, that are nobly born, more than a horse-race, or a hunting-match, our day to break with citizens, and such innate mysteries?

The cart.—This is truly leaping from the stage to the tumbril again, reducing all wit to the original dung-cart.

Of the magnitude and compass of any fable, epic or dramatic.

What the measure of a fable is.—The fable or plot of a poem defined.—The epic fable, differing from the dramatic.—To the resolving of this question we must first agree in the definition of the fable. The fable is called the imitation of one entire and perfect action, whose parts are so joined and knit together, as nothing in the structure can be changed, or taken away, without impairing or troubling the whole, of which there is a proportionable magnitude in the members. As for example: if a man would build a house, he would first appoint a place to build it in, which he would define within certain bounds; so in the constitution of a poem, the action is aimed at by the poet, which answers place in a building, and that action hath his largeness, compass, and proportion. But as a court or king's palace requires other dimensions than a private house, so the epic asks a magnitude from other poems, since what is place in the one is action in the other; the difference is an space. So that by this definition we conclude the fable to be the imitation of one perfect and entire action, as one perfect and entire place is required to a building. By perfect, we understand that to which nothing is wanting, as place to the building that is raised, and action to the fable that is formed. It is perfect, perhaps not for a court or king's palace, which requires a greater ground, but for the structure he would raise; so the space of the action may not prove large enough for the epic fable, yet be perfect for the dramatic, and whole.

What we understand by whole.—Whole we call that, and perfect, which hath a beginning, a midst, and an end. So the place of any building may be whole and entire for that work, though too little for a palace. As to a tragedy or a comedy, the action may be convenient and perfect that would not fit an epic poem in magnitude. So a lion is a perfect creature in himself, though it be less than that of a buffalo or a rhinocerote. They differ but in specie: either in the kind is absolute; both have their parts, and either the whole. Therefore, as in every body so in every action, which is the subject of a just work, there is required a certain proportionable greatness, neither too vast nor too minute. For that which happens to the eyes when we behold a body, the same happens to the memory when we contemplate an action. I look upon a monstrous giant, as Tityus, whose body covered nine acres of land, and mine eye sticks upon every part; the whole that consists of those parts will never be taken in at one entire view. So in a fable, if the action be too great, we can never comprehend the whole together in our imagination. Again, if it be too little, there ariseth no pleasure out of the object; it affords the view no stay; it is beheld, and vanisheth at once. As if we should look upon an ant or pismire, the parts fly the sight, and the whole considered is almost nothing. The same happens in action, which is the object of memory, as the body is of sight. Too vast oppresseth the eyes, and exceeds the memory; too little scarce admits either.

What is the utmost bounds of a fable.—Now in every action it behoves the poet to know which is his utmost bound, how far with fitness and a necessary proportion he may produce and determine it; that is, till either good fortune change into the worse, or the worse into the better. For as a body without proportion cannot be goodly, no more can the action, either in comedy or tragedy, without his fit bounds: and every bound, for the nature of the subject, is esteemed the best that is largest, till it can increase no more; so it behoves the action in tragedy or comedy to be let grow till the necessity ask a conclusion; wherein two things are to be considered: first, that it exceed not the compass of one day; next, that there be place left for digression and art. For the episodes and digressions in a fable are the same that household stuff and other furniture are in a house. And so far from the measure and extent of a fable dramatic.

What by one and entire.—Now that it should be one and entire. One is considerable two ways; either as it is only separate, and by itself, or as being composed of many parts, it begins to be one as those parts grow or are wrought together. That it should be one the first away alone, and by itself, no man that hath tasted letters ever would say, especially having required before a just magnitude and equal proportion of the parts in themselves. Neither of which can possibly be, if the action be single and separate, not composed of parts, which laid together in themselves, with an equal and fitting proportion, tend to the same end; which thing out of antiquity itself hath deceived many, and more this day it doth deceive.

Hercules.—Theseus.—Achilles.—Ulysses.—Homer and Virgil.— AEneas.—Venus.—So many there be of old that have thought the action of one man to be one, as of Hercules, Theseus, Achilles, Ulysses, and other heroes; which is both foolish and false, since by one and the same person many things may be severally done which cannot fitly be referred or joined to the same end: which not only the excellent tragic poets, but the best masters of the epic, Homer and Virgil, saw. For though the argument of an epic poem be far more diffused and poured out than that of tragedy, yet Virgil, writing of AEneas, hath pretermitted many things. He neither tells how he was born, how brought up, how he fought with Achilles, how he was snatched out of the battle by Venus; but that one thing, how he came into Italy, he prosecutes in twelve books. The rest of his journey, his error by sea, the sack of Troy, are put not as the argument of the work, but episodes of the argument. So Homer laid by many things of Ulysses, and handled no more than he saw tended to one and the same end.

Theseus.—Hercules.—Juvenal.—Codrus.—Sophocles.—Ajax.—Ulysses.- -Contrary to which, and foolishly, those poets did, whom the philosopher taxeth, of whom one gathered all the actions of Theseus, another put all the labours of Hercules in one work. So did he whom Juvenal mentions in the beginning, "hoarse Codrus," that recited a volume compiled, which he called his Theseide, not yet finished, to the great trouble both of his hearers and himself; amongst which there were many parts had no coherence nor kindred one with another, so far they were from being one action, one fable. For as a house, consisting of divers materials, becomes one structure and one dwelling, so an action, composed of divers parts, may become one fable, epic or dramatic. For example, in a tragedy, look upon Sophocles, his Ajax: Ajax, deprived of Achilles' armour, which he hoped from the suffrage of the Greeks, disdains; and, growing impatient of the injury, rageth, and runs mad. In that humour he doth many senseless things, and at last falls upon the Grecian flock and kills a great ram for Ulysses: returning to his senses, he grows ashamed of the scorn, and kills himself; and is by the chiefs of the Greeks forbidden burial. These things agree and hang together, not as they were done, but as seeming to be done, which made the action whole, entire, and absolute.

The conclusion concerning the whole, and the parts.—Which are episodes.—Ajax and Hector.—Homer.—For the whole, as it consisteth of parts, so without all the parts it is not the whole; and to make it absolute is required not only the parts, but such parts as are true. For a part of the whole was true; which, if you take away, you either change the whole or it is not the whole. For if it be such a part, as, being present or absent, nothing concerns the whole, it cannot be called a part of the whole; and such are the episodes, of which hereafter. For the present here is one example: the single combat of Ajax with Hector, as it is at large described in Homer, nothing belongs to this Ajax of Sophocles.

You admire no poems but such as run like a brewer's cart upon the stones, hobbling:-

"Et, quae per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt, Accius et quidquid Pacuviusque vomunt. Attonitusque legis terrai, frugiferai." {160a}



SOME POEMS.



TO WILLIAM CAMDEN



Camden! most reverend head, to whom I owe All that I am in arts, all that I know - How nothing's that! to whom my country owes The great renown, and name wherewith she goes! Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave, More high, more holy, that she more would crave. What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things! What sight in searching the most antique springs! What weight, and what authority in thy speech! Men scarce can make that doubt, but thou canst teach. Pardon free truth, and let thy modesty, Which conquers all, be once o'ercome by thee. Many of thine, this better could, than I; But for their powers, accept my piety.



ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER



Here lies, to each her parents' ruth, Mary, the daughter of their youth; Yet, all heaven's gifts, being heaven's due, It makes the father less to rue. At six months' end, she parted hence, With safety of her innocence; Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name she bears, In comfort of her mother's tears, Hath placed amongst her virgin-train; Where, while that severed doth remain, This grave partakes the fleshly birth; Which cover lightly, gentle earth!



ON MY FIRST SON



Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy; Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. Oh! could I lose all father, now! for why, Will man lament the state he should envy? To have so soon 'scaped world's, and flesh's rage, And, if no other misery, yet age! Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry; For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.



TO FRANCIS BEAUMONT



How I do love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse, That unto me dost such religion use! How I do fear myself, that am not worth The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth! At once thou mak'st me happy, and unmak'st; And giving largely to me, more thou takest! What fate is mine, that so itself bereaves? What art is thine, that so thy friend deceives? When even there, where most thou praisest me, For writing better, I must envy thee.



OF LIFE AND DEATH



The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds: Through which our merit leads us to our meeds. How wilful blind is he, then, that would stray, And hath it in his powers to make his way! This world death's region is, the other life's: And here it should be one of our first strifes, So to front death, as men might judge us past it: For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.



INVITING A FRIEND TO SUPPER



To-night, grave sir, both my poor house and I Do equally desire your company; Not that we think us worthy such a guest, But that your worth will dignify our feast, With those that come; whose grace may make that seem Something, which else could hope for no esteem. It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates The entertainment perfect, not the cates. Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate, An olive, capers, or some bitter salad Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen, If we can get her, full of eggs, and then, Lemons and wine for sauce: to these, a coney Is not to be despaired of for our money; And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks, The sky not falling, think we may have larks. I'll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come: Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some May yet be there; and godwit if we can; Knat, rail, and ruff, too. Howsoe'er, my man Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus, Livy, or of some better book to us, Of which we'll speak our minds, amidst our meat; And I'll profess no verses to repeat: To this if aught appear, which I not know of, That will the pastry, not my paper, show of. Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will be; But that which most doth take my muse and me, Is a pure cup of rich canary wine, Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine: Of which had Horace, or Anacreon tasted, Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted. Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring, Are all but Luther's beer, to this I sing. Of this we will sup free, but moderately, And we will have no Pooly' or Parrot by; Nor shall our cups make any guilty men; But at our parting we will be as when We innocently met. No simple word That shall be uttered at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning; or affright The liberty that we'll enjoy to-night.



EPITAPH ON SALATHIEL PAVY, A CHILD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S CHAPEL



Weep with me all you that read This little story; And know for whom a tear you shed, Death's self is sorry. 'Twas a child that so did thrive In grace and feature, As heaven and nature seemed to strive Which owned the creature. Years he numbered scarce thirteen When fates turned cruel; Yet three filled zodiacs had he been The stage's jewel; And did act, what now we moan, Old men so duly; As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one He played so truly. So, by error to his fate They all consented; But viewing him since, alas, too late! They have repented; And have sought to give new birth, In baths to steep him; But, being so much too good for earth, Heaven vows to keep him.



EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH, L. H.



Wouldst thou hear what man can say In a little? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die Which in life did harbour give To more virtue than doth live. If, at all, she had a fault Leave it buried in this vault. One name was Elizabeth, The other let it sleep with death. Fitter, where it died, to tell, Than that it lived at all. Farewell.



EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE



Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse, Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother: Death! ere thou hast slain another, Learned, and fair, and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee.



TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US



To draw no envy, Shakspeare, on thy name, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; While I confess thy writings to be such, As neither man, nor muse can praise too much. 'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise; For silliest ignorance on these may light, Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right; Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance; Or crafty malice might pretend this praise, And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise. These are, as some infamous bawd, or whore, Should praise a matron; what would hurt her more? But thou art proof against them, and, indeed, Above the ill-fortune of them, or the need. I, therefore, will begin: Soul of the age! The applause! delight! and wonder of our stage! My Shakspeare rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further off, to make thee room: Thou art a monument without a tomb, And art alive still, while thy book doth live And we have wits to read, and praise to give. That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses, I mean with great, but disproportioned Muses; For if I thought my judgment were of years, I should commit thee surely with thy peers, And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine, Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line. And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, From thence to honour thee, I will not seek For names: but call forth thundering Eschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles to us, Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordoua dead, To live again, to hear thy buskin tread, And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on, Leave thee alone for the comparison Of all that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show, To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of an age, but for all time! And all the Muses still were in their prime, When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm! Nature herself was proud of his designs, And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines! Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit, As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit. The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes, Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please; But antiquated and deserted lie, As they were not of nature's family. Yet must I not give nature all; thy art, My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part. For though the poet's matter nature be, His heart doth give the fashion: and, that he Who casts to write a living line, must sweat, (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat Upon the Muse's anvil; turn the same, And himself with it, that he thinks to frame; Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn; For a good poet's made, as well as born. And such wert thou! Look how the father's face Lives in his issue, even so the race Of Shakspeare's mind and manners brightly shines In his well-turned, and true filed lines; In each of which he seems to shake a lance, As brandished at the eyes of ignorance. Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear, And make those flights upon the banks of Thames, That so did take Eliza, and our James! But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere Advanced, and made a constellation there! Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage, Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage, Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night, And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.



TO CELIA



Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine: But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee, As giving it a hope that there It could not withered be. But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me: Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee.



THE TRIUMPH OF CHARIS



See the chariot at hand here of Love, Wherein my lady rideth! Each that draws is a swan or a dove, And well the car Love guideth. As she goes, all hearts do duty Unto her beauty; And, enamoured, do wish, so they might But enjoy such a sight, That they still were to run by her side, Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light All that Love's world compriseth! Do but look on her hair, it is bright As Love's star when it riseth! Do but mark, her forehead's smoother Than words that soothe her! And from her arched brows, such a grace Sheds itself through the face, As alone there triumphs to the life All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow Before rude hands have touched it? Have you marked but the fall o' the snow Before the soil hath smutched it? Have you felt the wool of beaver? Or swan's down ever? Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier? Or the nard in the fire? Or have tasted the bag of the bee? O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!



IN THE PERSON OF WOMANKIND A SONG APOLOGETIC



Men, if you love us, play no more The fools or tyrants with your friends, To make us still sing o'er and o'er Our own false praises, for your ends: We have both wits and fancies too, And, if we must, let's sing of you.

Nor do we doubt but that we can, If we would search with care and pain, Find some one good in some one man; So going thorough all your strain, We shall, at last, of parcels make One good enough for a song's sake.

And as a cunning painter takes, In any curious piece you see, More pleasure while the thing he makes, Than when 'tis made—why so will we. And having pleased our art, we'll try To make a new, and hang that by.



ODE To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Morison.



I.

THE TURN.

Brave infant of Saguntum, clear Thy coming forth in that great year, When the prodigious Hannibal did crown His cage, with razing your immortal town. Thou, looking then about, Ere thou wert half got out, Wise child, didst hastily return, And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn. How summed a circle didst thou leave mankind Of deepest lore, could we the centre find!

THE COUNTER-TURN.

Did wiser nature draw thee back, From out the horror of that sack, Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right, Lay trampled on? the deeds of death and night, Urged, hurried forth, and hurled Upon th' affrighted world; Sword, fire, and famine, with fell fury met, And all on utmost ruin set; As, could they but life's miseries foresee, No doubt all infants would return like thee.

THE STAND.

For what is life, if measured by the space Not by the act? Or masked man, if valued by his face, Above his fact? Here's one outlived his peers, And told forth fourscore years; He vexed time, and busied the whole state; Troubled both foes and friends; But ever to no ends: What did this stirrer but die late? How well at twenty had he fallen or stood! For three of his fourscore he did no good.

II.

THE TURN

He entered well, by virtuous parts, Got up, and thrived with honest arts; He purchased friends, and fame, and honours then, And had his noble name advanced with men: But weary of that flight, He stooped in all men's sight To sordid flatteries, acts of strife, And sunk in that dead sea of life, So deep, as he did then death's waters sup, But that the cork of title buoyed him up.

THE COUNTER-TURN

Alas! but Morison fell young: He never fell,—thou fall'st, my tongue. He stood a soldier to the last right end, A perfect patriot, and a noble friend; But most, a virtuous son. All offices were done By him, so ample, full, and round, In weight, in measure, number, sound, As, though his age imperfect might appear, His life was of humanity the sphere.

THE STAND

Go now, and tell out days summed up with fears, And make them years; Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage, To swell thine age; Repeat of things a throng, To show thou hast been long, Not lived: for life doth her great actions spell. By what was done and wrought In season, and so brought To light: her measures are, how well Each syllabe answered, and was formed, how fair; These make the lines of life, and that's her air!

III.

THE TURN

It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make men better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear: A lily of a day, Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night; It was the plant, and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be.

THE COUNTER-TURN

Call, noble Lucius, then for wine, And let thy looks with gladness shine: Accept this garland, plant it on thy head And think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead He leaped the present age, Possessed with holy rage To see that bright eternal day; Of which we priests and poets say, Such truths, as we expect for happy men: And there he lives with memory and Ben.

THE STAND

Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went, Himself to rest, Or taste a part of that full joy he meant To have expressed, In this bright Asterism! Where it were friendship's schism, Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry, To separate these twi- Lights, the Dioscouri; And keep the one half from his Harry, But fate doth so alternate the design Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine.

IV.

THE TURN

And shine as you exalted are; Two names of friendship, but one star: Of hearts the union, and those not by chance Made, or indenture, or leased out t'advance The profits for a time. No pleasures vain did chime, Of rhymes, or riots, at your feasts, Orgies of drink, or feigned protests: But simple love of greatness and of good, That knits brave minds and manners more than blood.

THE COUNTER-TURN

This made you first to know the why You liked, then after, to apply That liking; and approach so one the t'other, Till either grew a portion of the other: Each styled by his end, The copy of his friend. You lived to be the great sir-names, And titles, by which all made claims Unto the virtue; nothing perfect done, But as a Cary, or a Morison.

THE STAND

And such a force the fair example had, As they that saw The good, and durst not practise it, were glad That such a law Was left yet to mankind; Where they might read and find Friendship, indeed, was written not in words; And with the heart, not pen, Of two so early men, Whose lines her rolls were, and records; Who, ere the first down bloomed upon the chin, Had sowed these fruits, and got the harvest in.

PRAELUDIUM

And must I sing? What subject shall I choose! Or whose great name in poets' heaven use, For the more countenance to my active muse?

Hercules? alas, his bones are yet sore With his old earthly labours t' exact more Of his dull godhead were sin. I'll implore

Phoebus. No, tend thy cart still. Envious day Shall not give out that I have made thee stay, And foundered thy hot team, to tune my lay.

Nor will I beg of thee, lord of the vine, To raise my spirits with thy conjuring wine, In the green circle of thy ivy twine.

Pallas, nor thee I call on, mankind maid, That at thy birth mad'st the poor smith afraid. Who with his axe thy father's midwife played.

Go, cramp dull Mars, light Venus, when he snorts, Or with thy tribade trine invent new sports; Thou, nor thy looseness with my making sorts.

Let the old boy, your son, ply his old task, Turn the stale prologue to some painted mask; His absence in my verse is all I ask.

Hermes, the cheater, shall not mix with us, Though he would steal his sisters' Pegasus, And rifle him; or pawn his petasus.

Nor all the ladies of the Thespian lake, Though they were crushed into one form, could make A beauty of that merit, that should take

My muse up by commission; no, I bring My own true fire: now my thought takes wing, And now an epode to deep ears I sing.



EPODE



Not to know vice at all, and keep true state, Is virtue and not fate: Next to that virtue, is to know vice well, And her black spite expel. Which to effect (since no breast is so sure, Or safe, but she'll procure Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard Of thoughts to watch and ward At th' eye and ear, the ports unto the mind, That no strange, or unkind Object arrive there, but the heart, our spy, Give knowledge instantly To wakeful reason, our affections' king: Who, in th' examining, Will quickly taste the treason, and commit Close, the close cause of it. 'Tis the securest policy we have, To make our sense our slave. But this true course is not embraced by many: By many! scarce by any. For either our affections do rebel, Or else the sentinel, That should ring 'larum to the heart, doth sleep: Or some great thought doth keep Back the intelligence, and falsely swears They're base and idle fears Whereof the loyal conscience so complains. Thus, by these subtle trains, Do several passions invade the mind, And strike our reason blind: Of which usurping rank, some have thought love The first: as prone to move Most frequent tumults, horrors, and unrests, In our inflamed breasts: But this doth from the cloud of error grow, Which thus we over-blow. The thing they here call love is blind desire, Armed with bow, shafts, and fire; Inconstant, like the sea, of whence 'tis born, Rough, swelling, like a storm; With whom who sails, rides on the surge of fear, And boils as if he were In a continual tempest. Now, true love No such effects doth prove; That is an essence far more gentle, fine, Pure, perfect, nay, divine; It is a golden chain let down from heaven, Whose links are bright and even; That falls like sleep on lovers, and combines The soft and sweetest minds In equal knots: this bears no brands, nor darts, To murder different hearts, But, in a calm and god-like unity, Preserves community. O, who is he that, in this peace, enjoys Th' elixir of all joys? A form more fresh than are the Eden bowers, And lasting as her flowers; Richer than Time and, as Times's virtue, rare; Sober as saddest care; A fixed thought, an eye untaught to glance; Who, blest with such high chance, Would, at suggestion of a steep desire, Cast himself from the spire Of all his happiness? But soft: I hear Some vicious fool draw near, That cries, we dream, and swears there's no such thing, As this chaste love we sing. Peace, Luxury! thou art like one of those Who, being at sea, suppose, Because they move, the continent doth so: No, Vice, we let thee know Though thy wild thoughts with sparrows' wings do fly, Turtles can chastely die; And yet (in this t' express ourselves more clear) We do not number here Such spirits as are only continent, Because lust's means are spent; Or those who doubt the common mouth of fame, And for their place and name, Cannot so safely sin: their chastity Is mere necessity; Nor mean we those whom vows and conscience Have filled with abstinence: Though we acknowledge who can so abstain, Makes a most blessed gain; He that for love of goodness hateth ill, Is more crown-worthy still Than he, which for sin's penalty forbears: His heart sins, though he fears. But we propose a person like our Dove, Graced with a Phoenix' love; A beauty of that clear and sparkling light, Would make a day of night, And turn the blackest sorrows to bright joys: Whose odorous breath destroys All taste of bitterness, and makes the air As sweet as she is fair. A body so harmoniously composed, As if nature disclosed All her best symmetry in that one feature! O, so divine a creature Who could be false to? chiefly, when he knows How only she bestows The wealthy treasure of her love on him; Making his fortunes swim In the full flood of her admired perfection? What savage, brute affection, Would not be fearful to offend a dame Of this excelling frame? Much more a noble, and right generous mind, To virtuous moods inclined, That knows the weight of guilt: he will refrain From thoughts of such a strain, And to his sense object this sentence ever, "Man may securely sin, but safely never."



AN ELEGY



Though beauty be the mark of praise, And yours, of whom I sing, be such As not the world can praise too much, Yet is 't your virtue now I raise.

A virtue, like allay, so gone Throughout your form, as though that move, And draw, and conquer all men's love, This subjects you to love of one,

Wherein you triumph yet: because 'Tis of yourself, and that you use The noblest freedom, not to choose Against or faith, or honour's laws.

But who could less expect from you, In whom alone Love lives again? By whom he is restored to men; And kept, and bred, and brought up true?

His falling temples you have reared, The withered garlands ta'en away; His altars kept from the decay That envy wished, and nature feared;

And on them burns so chaste a flame, With so much loyalty's expense, As Love, t' acquit such excellence, Is gone himself into your name.

And you are he: the deity To whom all lovers are designed, That would their better objects find; Among which faithful troop am I;

Who, as an offering at your shrine, Have sung this hymn, and here entreat One spark of your diviner heat To light upon a love of mine;

Which, if it kindle not, but scant Appear, and that to shortest view, Yet give me leave t' adore in you What I, in her, am grieved to want.



Footnotes:

{11} "So live with yourself that you do not know how ill yow mind is furnished."

{12} [Greek text]

{14} "A Puritan is a Heretical Hypocrite, in whom the conceit of his own perspicacity, by which he seems to himself to have observed certain errors in a few Church dogmas, has disturbed the balance of his mind, so that, excited vehemently by a sacred fury, he fights frenzied against civil authority, in the belief that he so pays obedience to God."

{17a} Night gives counsel.

{17b} Plutarch in Life of Alexander. "Let it not be, O King, that you know these things better than I."

{19a} "They were not our lords, but our leaders."

{19b} "Much of it is left also for those who shall be hereafter."

{19c} "No art is discovered at once and absolutely."

{22} With a great belly. Comes de Schortenhien.

{23} "In all things I have a better wit and courage than good fortune."

{24a} "The rich soil exhausts; but labour itself is an aid."

{24b} "And the gesticulation is vile."

{25a} "An end is to be looked for in every man, an animal most prompt to change."

{25b} Arts are not shared among heirs.

{31a} "More loquacious than eloquent; words enough, but little wisdom."—Sallust.

{31b} Repeated in the following Latin. "The best treasure is in that man's tongue, and he has mighty thanks, who metes out each thing in a few words."—Hesiod.

{31c} Vid. Zeuxidis pict. Serm. ad Megabizum.—Plutarch.

{32a} "While the unlearned is silent he may be accounted wise, for he has covered by his silence the diseases of his mind."

{32b} Taciturnity.

{33a} "Hold your tongue above all things, after the example of the gods."—See Apuleius.

{33b} "Press down the lip with the finger."—Juvenal.

{33c} Plautus.

{33d} Trinummus, Act 2, Scen. 4.

{34a} "It was the lodging of calamity."—Mart. lib. 1, ep. 85.

{41} ["Ficta omnia celeriter tanquam flosculi decidunt, nec simulatum potest quidquam esse diuturnum."—Cicero.]

{44a} Let a Punic sponge go with the book.—Mart. 1. iv. epig. 10.

{47a} He had to be repressed.

{49a} A wit-stand.

{49b} Martial. lib. xi. epig. 91. That fall over the rough ways and high rocks.

{59a} Sir Thomas More. Sir Thomas Wiat. Henry Earl of Surrey. Sir Thomas Chaloner. Sir Thomas Smith. Sir Thomas Eliot. Bishop Gardiner. Sir Nicolas Bacon, L.K. Sir Philip Sidney. Master Richard Hooker. Robert Earl of Essex. Sir Walter Raleigh. Sir Henry Savile. Sir Edwin Sandys. Sir Thomas Egerton, L.C. Sir Francis Bacon, L.C.

{62a} "Which will secure a long age for the known writer."—Horat. de Art. Poetica.

{66a} They have poison for their food, even for their dainty.

{74a} Haud infima ars in principe, ubi lenitas, ubi severitas—plus polleat in commune bonum callere.

{74b} i.e., Machiavell.

{81a} "Censure pardons the crows and vexes the doves."—Juvenal.

{81b} "Does not spread his net for the hawk or the kite."—Plautus.

{93} Parrhasius. Eupompus. Socrates. Parrhasius. Clito. Polygnotus. Aglaophon. Zeuxis. Parrhasius. Raphael de Urbino. Mich. Angelo Buonarotti. Titian. Antony de Correg. Sebast. de Venet. Julio Romano. Andrea Sartorio.

{94} Plin. lib. 35. c. 2, 5, 6, and 7. Vitruv. lib. 8 and 7.

{95} Horat. in "Arte Poet."

{106a} Livy, Sallust, Sidney, Donne, Gower, Chaucer, Spenser, Virgil, Ennius, Homer, Quintilian, Plautus, Terence.

{110a} The interpreter of gods and men.

{111a} Julius Caesar. Of words, see Hor. "De Art. Poet.;" Quintil. 1. 8, "Ludov. Vives," pp. 6 and 7.

{111b} A prudent man conveys nothing rashly.

{114a} That jolt as they fall over the rough places and the rocks.

{116a} Directness enlightens, obliquity and circumlocution darken.

{117a} Ocean trembles as if indignant that you quit the land.

{117b} You might believe that the uprooted Cyclades were floating in.

{118a} Those armies of the people of Rome that might break through the heavens.—Caesar. Comment. circa fin.

{124a} No one can speak rightly unless he apprehends wisely.

{133a} "Where the discussion of faults is general, no one is injured."

{133b} "Gnaw tender little ears with biting truth—Per Sat. 1.

{133c} "The wish for remedy is always truer than the hope.—Livius.

{136a} "AEneas dedicates these arms concerning the conquering Greeks."—Virg. AEn. lib. 3.

{136b} "You buy everything, Castor; the time will come when you will sell everything."—Martial, lib. 8, epig. 19.

{136c} "Cinna wishes to seem poor, and is poor."

{136d} "Which is evident in every first song."

{139a} "There is a god within us, and when he is stirred we grow warm; that spirit comes from heavenly realms."

{146a} "If it were allowable for immortals to weep for mortals, the Muses would weep for the poet Naevius; since he is handed to the chamber of Orcus, they have forgotten how to speak Latin at Rome.

{148a} "No one has judged poets less happily than he who wrote about them."—Senec. de Brev. Vit, cap. 13, et epist. 88.

{149a} Heins, de Sat. 265.

{149b} Pag. 267.

{149c} Pag. 270. 271.

{149d} Pag. 273, et seq.

{149e} Pag. in comm. 153, et seq.

{160a} "And which jolt as they fall over the rough uneven road and high rocks."—Martial, lib. xi. epig. 91.

THE END