inas More was wont to do, would needs be counted like unto him.

This misliking of rhyming beginneth not now of any newfangle singularity, but hath been long misliked of many, and that of men of greatest learning and deepest judgement. And such that defend it, do so either for lack of knowledge what is best; or else of very envy that any should perform that in learning, whereunto they (as I said before) either for ignorance cannot, or for idleness will not labour to attain

unto.

And you that praise this rhyming, because you neither have reason why to like it, nor can show learning to defend it; yet I will help you with the authority of the oldest and learnedest time. In Greece, when poetry was even at the highest pitch of perfectness, one Simmias Rhodius, of a certain singularity, wrote a book in rhyming Greek verses, naming it, containing the fable how Jupiter in likeness of a swan begat that egg upon Leda, whereof came Castor, Pollux, and fair Helena. This book was so liked, that it had few to read it, but none to follow it; but was presently contemned, and soon after both author and book so forgotten by men, and consumed by time, as scarce the name of either is kept in memory of learning. And the like folly was never followed of any many hundred years after, until the Huns and Goths, and other barbarous nations of ignorance and rude singularity, did revive the same folly again.

The noble lord Thomas earl of Surrey, first of all Englishmen in translating the fourth book of Virgil ; and * Gonsalvo Periz, that excellent learned man, and secretary to king Philip of Spain, in translating the Ulysses of Homer out of Greek into Spanish, have both by good judgement avoided the fault of rhyming: yet neither of them hath fully hit perfect and true versifying. Indeed they observe just number, and even feet; but here is the fault, that their feet be feet without

sum esse, non magnum est: ut ille, qui nunc etiam amissa voce furit in republica Fusius, nervos in dicendo C. Fimbriæ, quos tamen habuit ille, non assequitur; oris pravitatem, et verborum latitudinem imitatur."

* Among Mr. Ascham's Letters, there is one to this learned Spaniard, wherein he recommends the ambassador, Sir William Cecil, to his acquaintance and friendship. The superscription of the Letter is, Clarissimo viro, D. Gonsalvo Perisio, Regis Catholici Secretario primario, et Consiliario intimo, Amico meo carissimo.'

joints; that is to say, not distinct by true quantity of syllables. And so such feet be but benumbed feet; and be even as unfit for a verse to turn and run roundly withal, as feet of brass or wood be unwieldy to go well withal. And as a foot of wood is a plain show of a manifest maim; even so feet in our English versifying without quantity and joints, be sure signs that the verse is either born deformed, unnatural, or lame; and so very unseemly to look upon, except to men that be goggle-eyed themselves.

The spying of this fault now is not the curiosity of English eyes, but even the good judgement also of the best that write in these days in Italy; and namely of that worthy Senese Felice Figliucci; who, writing upon Aristotle's Ethics so excellently in Italian, as never did yet any one in mine opinion, either in Greek or Latin; among other things, doth most earnestly inveigh against the rude rhyming of verses in that tongue. And whensoever he expresseth Aristotle's precepts with any example out of Homer or Euripides, he translateth them, not after the rhymes of Petrarch, but in such kind of perfect verse, with like feet and quantity of syllables as he found them before in the Greek tongue, exhorting earnestly all the Italian nation to leave off their rude barbarousness in rhyming, and follow diligently the excellent Greek and Latin examples in true versifying.

And you, that be able to understand no more than you find in the Italian tongue; and never went further than the school of Petrarch and Ariostus abroad, or else of Chaucer at home; though you have pleasure to wander blindly still in your foul wrong way, envy not others that seek, as wise men have done before them, the fairest and rightest way or else, beside the just reproach of malice, wise men shall truly judge that you do so, as I have said, and say yet again unto you, because either for idleness you will not, or for ignorance you cannot, come by no better yourselves.

And therefore, even as Virgil and Horace deserve most worthy praise, that they spying the imperfectness in Ennius and Plautus, by true Imitation of Homer and Euripides, brought poetry to the same perfectness in Latin as it was in Greek; even so those, that by the same way would benefit

The title of this Italian book is, Filosofia Morale sopra il 10 Libri d'Ethica d'Aristotile.'

their tongue and country, deserve rather thanks than dispraise in that behalf.

And I rejoice that even poor England prevented Italy, first in spying out, then in seeking to amend this fault in learning.

And here, for my pleasure, I purpose a little by the way, to play and sport with my master Tully; from whom commonly I am never wont to dissent. He himself, for this point of learning, in his verses doth halt a little, by his leave. He could not deny it, if he were alive, nor those defend him now that love him best. This fault I lay to his charge; because once it pleased him, though somewhat merrily, yet over-uncourteously, to rail upon poor England, objecting both extreme beggary and mere barbarousness unto it, writing thus unto his friend Atticus: "There is not one scruple of silver in that whole isle, or any one that knoweth either learning or letter."

But now, master Cicero, blessed be God and his Son Jesus Christ, whom you never knew, except it were as it pleased Him to enlighten you by some shadow, as covertly in one place you confess, saying, Veritatis tantùm umbram consectamur, as your master Plato did before you: blessed be God, I say, that sixteen hundred years after you were dead and gone, it may truly be said, that for silver, there is more comely plate in one city of England, than is in four of the proudest cities in all Italy, and take Rome for one of them: and for learning, beside the knowledge of all learned tongues and liberal sciences, even your own books, Cicero, be as well read, and your excellent eloquence is as well liked and loved, and as truly followed in England at this day, as it is now, or ever was since your own time, in any place of Italy, either at Arpinum, where you was born, or else at Rome, where you was brought up. And a little to brag with you, Cicero, where you yourself, by your leave, halted in some point of learning in your own tongue, many in England at this day go straight up, both in true skill and right doing therein.

*"Britannici belli exitus exspectatur: constat enim aditus insulæ esse munitos mirificis molibus. Etiam illud jam cognitum est, neque argenti scrupulum esse ullum in illa insula, neque ullam spem prædæ, nisi ex mancipiis: ex quibus nullos puto te literis aut musicis eruditos exspectare.' Cic. lib. 4. Epist. ad Attic. ep. 16.

This I write, not to reprehend Tully, whom above all others I like and love best; but to excuse Terence, because in his time, and a good while after, poetry was never perfected in Latin, until by true Imitation of the Grecians it was at length brought to perfection: and also thereby to exhort the goodly wits of England, which, apt by nature, and willing by desire, give themselves to poetry; that they, rightly understanding the barbarous bringing in of rhymes, would labour as Virgil and Horace did in Latin, to make perfect also this point of learning in our English tongue. And thus much for Plautus and Terence, for matter, tongue, and metre; what is to be followed and what to be eschewed in them.

After Plautus and Terence, no writing remaineth until Tully's time, except a few short fragments of L. Crassus's excellent wit, here and there* recited of Cicero for example sake: whereby the lovers of learning may the more lament the loss of such a worthy wit. And although the Latin tongue did fair bloom and blossom in L. Crassus and M. Antonius; yet in Tully's time only, and in Tully himself chiefly, was the Latin tongue fully ripe and grown to the highest pitch of all perfection. And yet in the same time, it began to fade and stoop, as Tully himself, in Brutus de claris Oratoribus, † with weeping words doth witness.

* In the first book de Oratore, Antonius recites this passage out of Crassus's Oration to the Commons of Rome: "Eripite nos ex miseriis; eripite nos ex faucibus eorum, quorum crudelitas nostro sanguine non potest expleri: nolite sinere nos cuiquam servire, nisi vobis universis, quibus et possumus, et debemus."

And in his introduction to the third, Tully produces this short, but admirable fragment, out of his speech, delivered in the senate-house against the consul Philip: "An tu, cùm omnem authoritatem universi ordinis pro pignore putaris, eamque in conspectu populi Romani concideris; me his pignoribus existimas posse terreri? Non tibi illa sunt cædenda, si Crassum vis coercere. Hæc tibi est excidenda lingua: qua vel evulsa, spiritu ipso libidinem tuam libertas mea refutabit."

+"Etenim si viveret Q. Hortensius, cetera fortasse desideraret unà cum reliquis bonis et fortibus civibus; hunc autem et præter cæteros, aut cum paucis sustineret dolorem, cùm forum populi Romani, quod fuisset quasi theatrum illius ingenii, voce erudita, et Romanis Græcisque auribus digna, spoliatum, atque orbatum videret.

"Nam mihi, Brute, in te intuenti crebrò in mentem venit vereri, ec

And because among them of that time there was some difference, good reason is, that of them of that time should be made right choice also. And yet let the best Ciceronian in Italy read Tully's Familiar Epistles advisedly over, and I believe he shall find small difference for the Latin tongue (either in propriety of words or framing of the style) betwixt Tully and those that write unto him: as Ser. Sulpicius, A. Cæcina, M. Cælius, M. & D. Bruti, Asinius Pollio, L. Plancus, and divers others. Read the Epistles of L. Plancus in the tenth book; and for an assay, that Epistle namely to the consuls and whole senate, the eighth epistle in number; and what could be either more eloquently or more wisely writ, yea by Tully himself, a man may justly doubt. These men and Tully lived all in one time; were like in authority, not unlike in learning and study, which might be just causes of this their equality in writing. And yet surely they neither were indeed, nor yet were counted in men's opinions, equal with Tully in that faculty.

And how is the difference hid in his Epistles? Verily, as the cunning of an expert seaman in a fair calm fresh river, doth little differ from the doing of a meaner workman therein; even so, in the short cut of a private letter, where matter is common, words easy, and order not much diverse, small show of difference can appear. But where Tully doth set up his sail of eloquence in some broad deep argument, carried with full tide and wind of his wit and learning; all others may rather stand and look after him, than hope to overtake him, what course soever he hold either in fair or foul. Four men only, when the Latin tongue was full ripe, be left unto us, who in that time did flourish, and did leave to posterity the fruit of their wit and learning; Varro, Sallust, Cæsar, and Cicero.

When I say these four only, I am not ignorant that even in the same time most excellent poets, deserving well of the Latin tongue, as Lucretius, Catullus, Virgil, and Horace, did write. But because in this little book I purpose to teach a young scholar to go, not to dance; to speak, not to sing,

quodnam curriculum aliquando sit habitura tua et natura admirabilis, et exquisita doctrina, et singularis industria. Cùm enim in maximis causis versatus esses, et cum tibi ætas nostra jam cederet, fascesque submitteret, subitò in civitate cùm alia ceciderunt, tum etiam ea ipsa, de qua disputare ordimur, eloquentia obmutuit." Cic. de claris Orat.