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 æthereis spiritus ille venit.

Lipsius. Petron. in Fragm. - And Lipsius to affirm: Scio, poetam neminem præstantem fuisse, sine parte quadam uberiore divine auræ. 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 come 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 an 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.-Alcæus, &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 Alcæus, and the other lyrics; and so of the rest. 4. Lectio.- Parnassus.- Helicon.- Ars coron.

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 shew 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 Stobæus, Ουτε φυσις ίκανη γίνεται τέχνης ατερ, ούτε παν τεχνη μη φυσιν κεκτημενη ̇ 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 any thing, 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.

CLI.

Virorum schola respub. - Lysippus. - Apelles.Nævius.-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 shews, 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 flere,

Flerent diva Camona Nævium Poetam :
Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro,
Obliti sunt Romæ linguâ loqui Latinâ.

CLII.

L. Elius Stilo.-Plautus.-M. Varro. Or that modester testimony given by Lucius Ælius Stilo upon Plautus, who affirmed, Musas, si latinè 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.

CLIII.

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.

CLIV.

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?

CLV.

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.