and fo is rather pained than delighted with laughter. Yet deny I not, but that they may go well together; for, as in Alexander's picture well fet out, we delight without laughter, and in twenty mad anticks we laugh without delight: fo in Hercules, painted with his great beard and furious countenance, in a woman's attire, fpinning at Omphale's commandment, it breeds both delight and laughter; for the reprefenting of fo ftrange a power in love, procures delight, and the fcornfulness of the action stirreth laughter.

But I fpeak to this purpofe, That all the end of the comical part be not upon fuch fcornful matters as ftir laughter only, but mix with it that delightful teaching, which is the end of Poefy. And the great fault, even in that point of laughter, and forbidden plainly by Ariz ftotle, is, That they ftir laughter in finful things, which are rather execrable than ridiculous, or in miferable, which are rather to be pitied than fcorned. For what is it to make folks gape at a wretched beggar, and a beggarly clown: or, against the law of hofpitality, to jest at ftrangers, because they fpeak not English fo well as we do? What do we learn, fince it is certain,

Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in fe,
Quam quod ridiculos homines facit ?

But rather a bufy loving courtier, and a heartlefs threatning Thrafo; a felf-wife feeming fchool.mafter; a wrytransformed traveller: thefe, if we faw walk in ftage names, which we play naturally, therein were delightful laughter, and teaching delightfulnefs; as in the other, the tragedies of Buchanan do juftly bring forth a divine admiration.

But I have lavished out too many words of this playmatter; I do it, becaufe, as they are excelling parts of Poefy, fo is there none fo much used in England, and none can be more pitifully abufed; which, like an unmannerly daughter, fhewing a bad education, causeth her mother Poefy's honefty to be called in queftion.

Other fort of Poetry, almoft,have we none, but that Lyrical kind of fongs and fonnets, which, if the Lord gave

us fo good minds, how well it might be employed, and with how heavenly fruits, both private and publick, in finging the praifes of the immortal beauty, the immortal goodness of that God, who giveth us hands to write, and wits to conceive; of which we might well want words, but never matter; of which we could turn our eyes to nothing, but we fhould ever have new budding occafions.

But, truly, many of fuch writings as come under the banner of unrefiftable love, if I were a mistress, would never perfuade me they were in love; fo coldly they apply fiery fpeeches, as men that had rather read lovers writings, and fo caught up certain fwelling phrafes, which hang together like a man that once told me, The wind was at North-west and by South, because he would be fure to name winds enough, than that, in truth, they feel thofe paffions, which eafily, as I think, may be bewrayed by the fame forciblene fs, or Energia (as the Greeks call it) of the writer. But let this be a fufficient, though fhort note, that we miss the right ufe of the material point of Poefy.

Now for the outfide of it, which is words, or (as I may term it) Diction, it is even well worfe: fo is it the honey-flowing matron Eloquence, apparelled, or rather disguised in a courtezan-like painted affectation. One time with fo far-fetcht words that many feem monsters, but muft feem ftrangers to any poor Englishman: Another time with courfing of a letter, as if they were bound to follow the method of a Dictionary: Another time with figures and flowers, extreamly winter-ftarved.

-But I would this fault were only peculiar to verfifiers, and had not as large poffeflion among profe-printers: and, which is to be marvailed, among many fcholars, and, which is to be pitied, among fome preachers. Truly. I could wifh, if at least I might be fo bold to wifh, in a thing beyond the reach of my capacity, the diligent imitators of Tully and Demofthenes, moft worthy to be imitated, did not fo much keep Nizolian paperbooks of their figures and phrafes, as by attentive tranflation, as it were, devour them whole, and make them wholly theirs. For now they caft fugar and spice upon every difh that is ferved at the table: like thofe

Indians

Indians, not content to wear ear-rings, at the fit and natural place of the ears, but they will thruft jewels through their nofe and lips, becaule they will be fure to be fine. Tully, when he was to drive out Catiline, as it were with a thunderbolt of eloquence, often ufeth the figure of repetition, as Vivit & vincit, imo in fenatum venit, imo in fenatum venit, Sc. Indeed inflamed with a well-grounded rage, he would have his words (as it were) double out of his mouth, and fo do that artificially, which we fee men in choler do naturally, And we having noted the grace of those words hale them in fometimes to a familiar epiftle, when it were too much choler to be cholerick.

How well, ftore of Similiter Cadences doth found with the gravity of the pulpit, I would but invoke Demofthenes's foul to tell, who with a rare daintinefs ufeth them. Truly, they have made me think of the fophi fter, that with too much fubtlety would prove two eggs three, and though he might be counted a fophifter, had none for his labour. So the fe men bringing in fuch a kind of eloquence, well may they obtain an opinion of a feeming fineness, but perfuade few, which should be the end of their fineness.

Now for fimilitude in certain printed difcourfes, I think all herbalifts, all ftories of beafts, fouls and fishes are rifled up, that they may come in multitudes to wait upon any of our conceits, which certainly is as abfurd a furfeit to the ears as is poffible. For the force. of a fimilitude not being to prove any thing to a contrary difputer, but only to explain to a willing hearer, when that is done, the rest is a moft tedious pratling, rather overfwaying the memory from the purpofe whereto they were applied, then any whit informing the judgment already either fatisfied, or by fimilitudes not to be fatisfied.

.

For my part, I do not doubt, when Antonius and Craffus, the great forefathers of Cicero in eloquence, the one (as Cicero teftifieth of them) pretended not to know art, the other not to fet by it, becaufe with a plain fenfibleness they might win credit of popular ears, which credit is the nearest step to perfuafion (which perfuafion is the chief mark of oratory) I do not doubt, I fay, but that they used these knacks very fparingly;

which who doth generally use, any man may fee, doth dance to his own mufick, and fo to be noted by the audience, more careful to speak curioufly than truly. Undoubtedly (at least to my opinion undoubtedly) I have found in diverfe fmall-learned courtiers a more found ftile, than in fome profeffors of learning, of which I can guess no other cause, but that the courtier following that which by practice he findeth fittest to nature, therein (though he know it not) doth according to art, though not by art: where the other, ufing art to fhew art, and not hide art (as in thefe cafes he fhould do) flyeth from nature, and indeed abuseth art.

But what? methinks I deferve to be pounded for Atraying from Poetry to Oratory: but both have fuch an affinity in the wordifh confiderations, that I think this digreffion will make my meaning receive the fuller. understanding: which is not to take upon me to teach Poets how they fhould do, but only finding my felf fick among the reft, to fhew fome one or two fpots of the common infection grown among the most part of writers; that, acknowledging ourselves fomewhat awry, we may bend to the right ufe both of matter and manner: Whereto our language giveth us great occafion, be ing, indeed, capable of any excellent exercifing of it. I know fome will fay, It is a mingled language: And why not fo much the better, taking the best of both the other? Another will fay, It wanteth Grammar. Nay, truly, it hath that praife that it wants not Grammar; for Grammar it might have, but it needs it not, being fo eafy in itself, and fo void of those cumbersome difference of Cafes, Genders, Moods, and Tenfes, which, I think, was a piece of the tower of Babylon's curfe, that a man fhould be put to fchool to learn his mother tongue. But for the uttering fweetly and properly the conceit of the mind, which is the end of fpeech, that hath it equally with any other tongue in the world, and is particu larly happy in compofitions of two or three words toge ther, near the Greek, far beyond the Latin, which is one of the greatest beauties can be in a language.

Now of verfifying, there are two forts, the one antient, the other modern; the antient marked the quantity of each fyllable, and according to that framed his verfe the modern, obferving only number, with fome regard

E

of

of the accent, the chief life of it ftandeth in that like founding of the words, which we call rhime. Whether of thofe be the more excellent, would bear many fpeeches, the antient, no doubt, more fit for mufick, both words and time obferving quantity, and more fit lively to exprefs diverfe paffions by the low or lofty found of the well-weighed fyllable. The latter likewife, with his rhime ftriketh a certain mufick to the ear; and, in fine, fince it doth delight, though by another way, it obtaineth the fame purpose, there being in either fweetness, and wanting in neither majefty. Truly, the English, before any vulgar language, I know, is fit for both forts; for, for the antient, the Italian is fo full of vowels, that it must ever be cumbred with Elyfions The Dutch fo, of the other fide, with confonants, that they cannot yield the fweet fiding fit for a verfe. The French, in his whole language, hath not one word that hath his accent in the last fyllable, faving two, called Antepenultima; and little more hath the Spanish, and therefore very gracelefly may they ufe Dactiles. The English is fubject to none of thefe defects. Now, for rhime, though we do not obferve quantity, yet we obferve the accent very precifely, which other languages either cannot do, or will not do fo abfolutely. That cafura, or breathing-place, in the midft of the verfe, neither Italian nor Spanish have, the French, and we never almost fail of. Lally, even the very rhime itself the Italian cannot put it in the last fyllable, by the French named the Mafculine rhime, but ftill in the next to the laft, which the French call the Female or the next before that, which the Italian call * Sdrucciola: the example of the former, is Buono, Suono; of the Sdrucciola, is Femina, Semina. The French, of the other fide, hath both the Male, as Bon, Son, and the Female, as Plaife, Taife; but the Sarucciola he hath not where the English hath all three, as Due, True, Father, Rather, Motion, Potion, with much more which might be faid, but that already I find the triflings of, this difcourfe is much too much inlarged...

i.e. The cafy fiding of words of Three, or more, Sylla bles.

So