what awry, we may bend to the right use both of matter and manner: Whereto our language giveth us great occafion, being, indeed, capable of any excellent exercifing of it. I know fome will fay, It is a mingled language: And why not so 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 so easy in itself, and fo void of thofe 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 speech, that hath it equally with any other tongue in the world, and is particularly happy in compofitions of two or three words together, 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 of the accent, the chief life of it ftandeth in that like founding of the words, which we call rhime. Whether of these be the more excellent, would bear many

speeches;

fpeeches; the antient, no doubt, more fit for mufick, both words and time observing quantity; and more fit lively to express divers pasfions, by the low or lofty found of the wellweighed fyllable. The latter likewise, 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 purpofe; there being in either Sweetness, and wanting in neither, majesty. 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 Eliftons. The Dutch fo, of the other fide, with confonants, that they cannot yield the fweet fliding 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 gracelessly may they ufe Dactiles. The English is fubject to none of these defects.

Now for rhime, though we do not observe quantity, yet we obferve the accent very precisely, which other languages either cannot do, or will not do fo abfolutely. That cafura, or breathing place, in the midst of the verfe, neither Italian nor Spanish have, the French, and we never almost fail of. Laftly, even the very rhime itself the Italian cannot put in the last syllable, by the French named the Mafculine rhime, but ftill

3

ftill in the next to the laft, which the French call the Female; or the next before that, which the Italian calls 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 Sdrucciola 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 trifling of this discourse is much too much inlarged.

So that fince the ever praife-worthy Poefy is full of virtue, breeding delightfulness, and void of no gift that ought to be in the noble name of learning; fince the blames laid against it are either false or feeble; fince the cause why it is not esteemed in England, is the fault of Poetapes, not Poets: Since, laftly, our tongue is most fit to honour Poefy, and to be honoured by Poefy; I conjure you all that have had the evil luck to read this ink-wafting toy of mine, even in the Iname of the nine Mufes, no more to scorn the facred mysteries of Poefy; no more to laugh at the name of Poets, as though they were next inheritors to fools; no more to jeft at the reverend title of a rhimer; but to believe, with Arif totle; That they were the antient treasures of the Grecians divinity; To believe, with Bembus, That they were firft bringers in of all civility;

To believe, with Scaliger, That no Philofopher's precepts can fooner make you an honeft man, than the reading of Virgil; To believe, with Clauferus, the tranflator of Cornutus, That it pleafed the heavenly Deity by Hefiod and Homer, under the veil of fables, to give us all Knowledge, Logick, Rhetorick, Philofophy Natural and To believe, with me, Moral, and Quid non? That there are many myfteries contained in Poetry, which of purpose were written darkly, left by profane wits it should be abused: To believe, with Landin, That they are fo beloved of the gods, that whatsoever they write, proceeds of a divine fury. Laftly, To believe themselves, when they tell you, They will make you immortal by their verfes.

Thus doing, your names fhall flourish in the printers fhops: Thus doing, you shall be of kin to many a poetical preface: Thus doing, you fhall be most fair, moft rich, moft wife, moft all; You shall dwell upon fuperlatives: Thus doing, though you be Libertino patre natus, you fhall fuddenly grow Herculea proles,

Si quid mea Carmina poffunt.

Thus doing, your foul fhall be placed with Dante's Beatrix, or Virgil's Anchifes.

But if (fie of fuch a But!) you be born fo near the dull-making Cataract of Nilus, that you

cannot

cannot hear the planet-like mufick of Poetry; if you have fo earth-creeping a mind, that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of Poetry, or rather, by a certain ruftical difdain, will become fuch a Mome, as to be a Momus of Poetry: Then, though I will not wish unto you the afs's ears of Midas, nor to be driven by a Poet's verses, as Bubonax was, to hang himfelf; not to be rhimed to death, as is faid to be done in Ireland; yet thus much curfe I muft fend you in the behalf of all Poets; That while you live, you live in love, and never get favour, for lacking skill of a fonnet; and when you die, your memory die from the earth, for want of an epitaph.