their mother tongue, that feed on nought but the crums that fall from the translator's trencher, I come (sweet friend) to thy Arcadian Menaphon, whose attyre (though not so stately, yet comely) doth intitle thee aboue all other, to that temperatum dicendi genus, which Tully in his Orator termeth true eloquence. Let other men (as they please) praise the mountayne that in seuen yeeres bringeth forth a mouse, or the Italiane pen, that of a packet of pilfries, affoords the presse a pamphlet or two in an age, and then in disguised array vaunts Ovid's and Plutarch's plumes as their owne: but giue mee the man whose extemporall veine in any humour, will excell our greatest ArtMaster's deliberate thoughts, whose inuentions, quicker then his eye, will challenge the prowdest rhetorician, to the contention of like perfection, with like expedition.

"What is he among students so simple, that cannot bring foorth (tanquam aliquando) some or other thing singular, sleeping betwixt euery sentence? What is not Maroe's twelue yeeres toyle, that so famed his twelue Eneidos? Or Peter Ramus' sixteene yeeres paine, that so praised his petty Logicke? How is it then, our drowping wits should so wonder at an exquisite line, that was his master's day-labour? Indeede, I must needs say, the descending yeeres from the philosopher's Athens, have not beene supplied with such present orators, as were able in any English veine to be eloquent of their owne, but either they must borrow inuention of Ariosto, and his countrimen, take vp choice of words by exchange in Tullie's Tusculans, and the Latine histriographer's store-houses, similitudes, nay, whole sheets, and tractates verbatim, from the plentie

of

of Plutarch and Plinie; and to conclude their whole methode of writing from the liberty of comicall fictions, that haue succeeded to our rhetoricians by a second imitation; so that wel may the adage, Nil dictum quod non dictum prius, bee the most judiciall estimate of our latter writers. But the hunger of our vnsatiate humorists, being such as it is, ready to swallow all draffe without difference, that insinuates it selfe to their senses vnder the name of delights, imploies ofttimes many threadbare wits, to emptie their inuention of their apish deuices, and talke most superficially of policie, as those that neuer ware gowne in the vniuersitie; wherein they reuiue the old said adage, Sus Mineruam, and cause the wiser to quippe them with Asinus ad Lyram. Would gentlemen and riper iudgements admit my motion of moderation in a matter of folly, I would perswade them to physicke their faculties of seeing and hearing, as the Sabæans doe their dulled senses with smelling; who (as Strabo reporteth) ouercloyd with such odoriferous sauours as the natural increase of their country (Balsamum, Amomum, with myrrhe and frankincense) sends forth, refresh their nostrils with the vnsauourie s[c]ent of the pitchy slime, that Euphrates cast vp, and the contagious fumes of goats beards burned; so would I have them, being surfeited vnawares with the sweet society of eloquence, which the lauish of our copious language may procure, to vse the remedie of contraries, and recreate their rebated wits; not as they did, with the s[c]enting of slime or goat's beards burned, but with the ouer-seeing of that sublime dicendi genus, which walkes abroad for waste paper in each seruing-man's pocket, and the otherwhile pervsing of our Gothamists barbarisme;

SO

so should the opposite comparison of puritie, expell the infection of absurditie, and their ouer-racked rhetoricke bee the ironicall recreation of the reader.

"But so farre discrepant is the idle vsage of our vnexperienced and illiterated punies from this prescription, that a tale of Ioane of Brainford's will, and the vnlucky frumenty, will be as soone entertayned into their libraries, as the best poeme that euer Tasso eterniz'd; which being the effect of an undiscerning iudgement, makes drosse as valuable as gold, and. losse as wel-come as gaine; the glowworme mentioned in Æsop's fables, namely, the ape's folly, to be mistaken for fire, when as God wot, poore soules, they haue nought but their toyle for their heate, their paines for their sweat, and (to bring it to our English prouerbe) their labour for their trauell. Wherein I can but resemble them to the panther, who is so greedy of men's excrements, that if they bee hanged vp in a vessell higher then his reach, hee sooner kills himselfe with the ouer-stretching of his windlesse body, then hee will cease from his intended enterprise. Oft have I obserued what I now set downe; a secular wit that hath liued all [the] dayes of his life by what doe you lack? to be more iudiciall in matters of conceit, then our quadrant crepundious, that spit ergo in the mouth of euery one they meete: yet those and these are affectionate to dogged detracting, as the most poysonous Pasquils, any durty-mouthed Martin, or Momus euer com

b

posed,

b Nash was one of the writers in the Mar-Martin controversy, A poem on that subject was given in the last volume to which should have been added that in 1593, "March the twenty-first, Henry Barrowe, Gentleman, and John Greenwood, clark, Daniel Studley, girdler, Sapio Bislot, gentleman,

Robert

posed, is gathered vp with greedinesse, before it fall to the ground, and bought at the dearest, though they smell of the Fripler's lauender, halfe a yeere after: for I know not how the minde of the meanest is fed with this folly, that they impute singularitie, to him that slanders priuily, and count it a great piece of art in an inke-horne man, in any Tapsterly termes whatsoeuer, to expose his superiours to enuy. I wil not deny, but in scholer-like matters of controuersie, a quicker stile may passe as commendable, and that a quip to an asse is as good as a goad to an oxe: but when the irregular ideot, that was vp to the eares in diuinitie, before euer hee met with probabile in the vniuersitie, shall leaue pro & contra, before hee can scarcely pronounce it, and come to correct common-weales, that neuer heard of the name of magistrate, before hee came to Cambridge, it is no maruaile if euery ale-house vaunt the table of the world turned vpside downe, since the child beateth his father, and the asse whippeth his master. But lest I might seeme with these night-crowes, Nimis curiosus in aliena republica, I will turne backe to my

Robert Bowlet, fishmonger, were indicted for felony, the said Barrow and Greenwood for writing seditious books tending to the ruin of the Queen and state, Studley, Billot, and Bowley, for publishing and setting forthe of the same books; and on the twenty-third, they were all arraigned, found guilty, and had judgment the last of March. Henry Barrowe and Greenwood were brought to Tyburn and there hanged the sixth of April. About the same time Henry [Penrie] a principal penner and publisher of books, intitled, Martin Marre Prelate, was apprehended at Stebben heath, by the vicar there, and sent to prison: in the moneth of May he was arraigned at the King's Bench bar, condemned of felony, and afterwards conveyed from the King's Bench to Saint Thomas Watrings and there hanged [10th April]. This pernicious book much troubled the people." Faithful Annalist to 1660. See Herbert, 1678.

first text of studies of delight, and talke a little in friendship with a few of our triuiall translators.

"It is a common practice now adayes amongst a sort of shifting companions, that runne through euery art, and thriue by none, to leaue the trade of Nouerint whereto they were borne, and busie themselues with the indeuors of art, that could scarcely Latinize their neck verse, if they should haue neede: yet English Seneca read by candle-light, yeelds many good sentences, as Bloud is a begger, and so forth: and if you intreate him faire in a frosty morning, hee will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say, handfuls of tragicall speeches. But, O griefe! Tempus edax rerum, what's that will last alwayes? The sea exhaled by drops, will in continuance bee drie: and Seneca let bloud line by line, and page by page, at length must needes die to our stage; which makes his famished followers to imitate the kid in Æsope, who enamoured with the foxes new-fangles, forsooke all hopes of life to leape into a new occupation, and these men renouncing all possibilities of credite or estimation, to intermeddle with Italian translations: wherein, how poorely they have plodded, (as those that are neither Pouerzal-men, nor are able to distinguish of articles) let all indifferent gentlemen that haue trauelled in that tongue, discerne by their two-penny pamphlets. And no maruel though their home-borne mediocritie bee such in this matter; for what can bee hoped of those, that thrust Elisium into hel, and haue not learned so long as they have liued in the spheares, the iust measure of the horizon without an hexameter? Sufficeth them to bodge vp a blanke verse with ifs and ands, and otherwhile for recreation after their candle-stuffe, hauing starched