Chapter I: Introduction (1)

I can conceive some readers, not necessarily frivolous, anticipating little pleasure from a volume devoted to examples of Elizabethan and Jacobean pamphlets. It must be the business of the volume I have planned to convince them that they are wrong. But even before that volume is read, I think it not impossible to show cause for its right to exist. The originals of these pamphlets, except a few which have become familiar in consequence of their bearing on Shakespearian questions, were till recently almost unknown, except to a few scholars and antiquaries, and are still for the most part inaccessible except in the original editions, which are bought at large prices by collectors, or in limited and often privately issued modern reprints. Yet their interest is very great. The pamphlet of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century corresponded much more nearly to the modern periodical than to anything else, unless, indeed, it be the modern newspaper. It included fiction, sketches of society, accounts of travel, literary criticism, personal controversy, theology,--the whole farrago, in short, of the non-political columns of our journals. It was in many cases written by men of much greater talent than the average journalist of the present day. In one remarkable case--that of the so-called Martin Marprelate controversy--it holds a position almost unique, or only shared by the not wholly dissimilar groups of literature which included and grew up round Pascal's _Provinciales_ and the _Tracts for the Times_. Above all, it has the advantage of a singular variety of subject, and of presenting the opportunity of making a great number of lively extracts, certainly faithful to the manners of the time, and showing those manners in a fashion not easy to surpass in freshness, contrast of colour, and incisive outline.

The pamphlet was one of the most immediate and necessary creations of the printing press. Before that invention it was hardly possible, and a very considerable time had to elapse afterwards before the combination of education in the reader, command of mechanical means in the diffuser, and changed political conditions, enabled the newspaper to supplant it. The pamphlet, so far as production is concerned, when once private presses are accessible, gives few hostages to fortune or to the strong hand of authority. It may make but a single appearance, and then the type is broken up, the machinery removed, and the printed copies left to find their way and do their work. A newspaper must have more or less of a headquarters, definite managers, at the very least a regular place and time of appearance at which it can be waited for and snapped up. Of the advantages offered by the pamphlet there is a good example in the fact that under the active, intelligent, and almost despotic government of Elizabeth, though the Martin Marprelate tracts excited the intensest hatred not merely of the lay authorities but of a powerful and omnipresent ecclesiastical corporation, the presses were only once (at Newton Lane in Lancashire) discovered and seized. In less perilous matter the pamphlet, if it did not give so much protection, 'obliged' even less. Its cost was small; the author was in no way bound to follow it up with anything else. It took him but a little time to produce; its profit, if there was any, came in quickly; it could be sold out before pirates could get hold of it; it did not frighten the unlearned by bulk and pretensions. On the other hand, of course, it had its drawbacks. It was of its nature, and in more points than one of that nature, ephemeral. The chances were rather against than in favour of its being preserved; for even in these days when most people have a library or book-room of some kind, the very student himself acknowledges with gnashings of teeth the way things published in pamphlet form have of 'going under,' of simply disappearing, he cannot tell how or whither. Hence the real and intrinsic interest of the pamphlet has had added to it the accidental and factitious interest of rarity. It is hardly a paradox to say that one of the best chances which such a thing had of surviving was the fact of its being proscribed and burnt by the hangman. There was then some reason for treasuring it instead of letting it go to clean boots, light fires, and wrap pounds of butter.

The pamphlets of the Elizabethan age were almost as often in verse as in prose, the superior attraction of verse for early and uncultivated audiences not having died out. Indeed, far later than the period covered by this volume, things continued to be written in verse which were merely pamphlets, and gave us both matter of eternity, such as _Absalom and Achitophel_ or _Religio Laici_, and hard-bound doggerel like Defoe's _True-Born Englishman_ and _Jure Divino_. The Elizabethan verse pamphlet, which was largely written by Thomas Churchyard, Nicholas Breton, John Davies, Samuel Rowlands, and others, is a curiosity, but as a rule very little more; and I do not propose to give any examples of it here. Nor, the space at my command being all too limited, have I thought it necessary to draw in this present volume on the miscellaneous pamphlets of the times. The examples will be taken from what may be called the great single pamphleteers or pamphlet collections--that is to say, Lodge, Greene, Nash, Harvey, 'Martin Marprelate' and the anti-Martinists, Breton, and Dekker. Some particulars of each of the selected authors or groups may appropriately be given in this introduction.

No minor Elizabethan author is better known than Robert Greene, partly from the fact that he touches Shakespeare, and partly from the other fact that his short and ill-spent life was that of the typical Bohemian, and so interests those who like gossip about men of letters. He was born in 1560 at Norwich, was educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge (being also subsequently incorporated at Oxford), travelled on the Continent, married, treated his wife very badly, may have been both a clerk in orders and a student of medicine, lived recklessly in London as a dramatist and pamphleteer, and died at the age of thirty-two either _propter_ or merely _post_ undue consumption of pickled herrings and Rhenish wine. His plays, though full of the ante-Shakespearian crudity and unskilled workmanship, have many graceful touches; the songs which he scattered about both his plays and his poems are frequently charming; his pamphlets, which, short as his life was, are very numerous, perhaps rank, on the whole, above those of any other Elizabethan writer for combined bulk, variety, and merit. They were produced in the space of about ten years (1583-92). Those certainly known to be his, or probably attributed to him, are nearly thirty in number, and almost defy classification. Some of them approach that strange type of novel consisting of a minimum of story, a maximum of moralising, and, if I may say so, a _plusquam_-maximum of conceited style, the example of which had been set in Lyly's _Euphues_. Not a few are personal reminiscences--how far deliberately imbued with an exaggerated profession of repentance in order to hit readers with both barrels it is very hard to say. A distinct and very interesting set deals with the ways of the Elizabethan 'conny-catcher,' the 'Captain Rook' (though usually of lower grade) of the time. Others are pure book-making, as we should call it now, about subjects which for political or other reasons happened to be in the public eye at the moment. Greene is certainly one of the most typical of his fellowship.

With him and close to him may be ranked Thomas Lodge, who was his contemporary, and for a time his comrade; but who, unlike Greene, settled down as a Roman Catholic physician, and outliving the hapless 'Roberto' more than thirty years, did not die till the last year of James. Lodge had perhaps higher powers than Greene, except in drama. One of his pamphlets, 'Rosalynde' or 'Euphues' Golden Legacy', gave Shakespeare, as most people now know, the subject of _As You Like It_, and has been more than once reprinted for that reason. He had also a faculty of which Greene shows no trace whatever--that of an accomplished literary critic; and twice, in answer to Gosson and Campion, took the right side against some of the literary heresies which animated that active and fruitful time. He was decidedly best in the euphuist romance, but he also practised the social satire pamphlet with no small success.

Nash and Harvey shared with Greene the luck, good or other, of being earlier presented in their lives, and in at least some of their works, to modern writers than their fellows. Indeed, Greene's not wholly enviable fame is as much due to the quarrels of these two as to his own works. Gabriel Harvey, the elder but very much the less able of the two, was a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, a friend of Sidney and of Spenser (whose _Faërie Queene_ he unmercifully snubbed, preferring the curious fancy of classical metres which was long patronised by the 'Areopagus' or Sidneian clique), and a man of real scholarship. But his exemplification of the worst faults of the university prig, and the pitiless exposure of them in his controversy with Thomas Nash (a younger Cambridge man, and wielder of the sharpest and most unscrupulous pen of his time), have brought down such hard language on him from most literary historians that one or two charitable or paradoxical souls have been tempted to take up the cudgels on his side. To this length, I cannot go. Why Harvey and Nash quarrelled no one knows exactly; but the quarrel, the pamphlet results of which make up the greater part of Harvey's work, plays only a small part in that of Nash. The very quarrel itself had, or seems to have had, something to do with the strange Marprelate business to be noticed presently, and Nash is at least with great probability supposed author of some of the chief numbers of that controversy on the anti-Martinist side. But he wrote not a little other pamphlet-matter, never quite attempting the euphuist romance in which his friends Greene and Lodge delighted, but producing discourses of apparitions in anticipation of Defoe, pious tractates expressing, or professing to express, his repentance for evil living, puffs (though this is rather an unkind word), such as his _Lenten Stuff_, eulogistic of the herrings which were the staple commodity of his native coast, and a curious book called _The Unfortunate Traveller_, dealing with the grand tour, and containing among other things the well-known romance (for romance it would seem to be) of Surrey the poet and his Geraldine. Where Nash stands eminent among the writers of the time is in his faculty of boisterous and burlesque abuse, which, in his famous lampoon upon Harvey, _Have with you to Saffron Walden_ (Harvey's birthplace), displayed itself in a manner not easy to parallel elsewhere in English.

It is very hard to give in very brief space an account of the Martin Marprelate matter, yet without some such account extracts from it must be hardly intelligible. It began about the year 1588, chiefly owing to the action of a certain Reverend Nicholas Udall, a puritan divine who struck into the controversy between the Episcopal and Presbyterian parties in the Church, and embittered it by the use of language so violent that he himself was imprisoned and his printer's press seized. This printer, Waldegrave, enraged thereat, lent his art to members of the puritan sect even more violent than Udall (their exact identity is matter of controversy), and a fire of pamphlets was opened by them, the earliest being called _The Epistle_ and _The Epitome_. In the first place, Dean Bridges of Salisbury and Bishop Cooper of Winchester, then other dignitaries, were assailed with real vigour and ability, but with the most unscrupulous partisanship, and in a dialect which for extravagance of abusive language had not been surpassed in the heat of the earlier Reformation controversies, and has scarcely been approached since. The partisans of the Church were fully equal to the occasion; and a counter fire of pamphlets, some of which are attributed with great probability to Nash, and others with hardly less to the Oxford dramatist and euphuist Lyly, was returned. The heat of the controversy lasted chiefly through three years--1588, 1589, and 1590; but it may be said in the widest sense to have endured for nearly seven--from 1586 to 1593, when Penry and Barrow, the supposed chiefs of the Martinists, were executed. Of the style of this singular controversy the extract will, I trust, give a sufficient idea. As to its matter, it is difficult to be more precise than this: that the object of the Martinist pamphleteers was to decry episcopacy by every possible description of personal abuse, applied to the holders and the defenders of the episcopal office, and that the object of their opponents of the same class (for men like Cooper and Bridges, still more like Whitgift and Hooker, stand in an entirely different category) was not so much to defend that office as to fling back in double measure the abuse upon 'Martin,' as the generic name went, and upon his known or supposed embodiments and partisans.

There can be few greater contrasts than between this furious ribaldry, as it too often is, and the mild mediocrity of Nicholas Breton. His claim to a place here (even if his merit be rated much lower than some have rated it) is, that he is the chief writer of the kind who is both in verse and prose a pamphleteer pure and simple. You cannot (at least I cannot) call Breton a poet, but he wrote immense quantities of verse, and in prose he pamphleted with such copiousness and persistence for nearly half a century, that it is clear there must have been money to be made by the practice.

The last of our chief single authors is Thomas Dekker, a very much greater man than Breton, though not so great in prose as in verse. He was somewhat later even in his beginning than the other writers I have noticed; and though his prose has not the formal merit or charm of his exquisite songs and his wonderful romantic character in drama, it is very interesting in matter. He paraphrases (_The Bachelor's Banquet_, _The Gull's Hornbook_) with remarkable freedom and skill; he chronicles plague years; he takes a hint from Greene, and extends and varies that author's satirical exposition of London tricks in a long and extremely vivid series of pamphlets, such as _The Bellman of London_, _The Seven Deadly Sins of London_, _Lanthorn and Candle Light_, _News from Hell_, and half a dozen others. In these, though of course a certain allowance must be made for the pressman's exaggeration in dealing with such subjects, there is a most singular and interesting picture of the lower and looser classes in England, at least in the English capital, at the time.

In this little book, after one or two changes of plan, I have finally decided on giving only entire pamphlets--a specimen of literary criticism from Lodge, of autobiographic romance from Greene, of politico-religious controversy from the Martin Marprelate series, of mingled self-panegyric and lampoon from Harvey, of burlesque from Nash, of paraphrase of foreign matter adapted to English conditions from Dekker, and of what may be called hack-work for the press from Breton. The annotation is deliberately limited to the removal of some of the most obvious stumbling-blocks to current reading. A full commentary on _The Gull's Hornbook_ alone would fill another volume, and the object in these books is to give text not comment.

I.--THOMAS LODGE

(_Stephen Gosson's_ Schoole of Abuse _has acquired something like fame in virtue of one of the answers to it--Sidney's_ Defence of Poetry. _That interesting little book has been frequently reprinted of late, and some knowledge of it, and of Gosson's attack which caused it, may be taken as common. Lodge's attempt, made as a very young man, to do what Sidney did is far less familiar even to students. It was reprinted in 1853, and again in the rare and costly private issue by the Hunterian Club of Lodge's whole works; but the author of the introductory essay to that issue, my friend Mr. Gosse, has been somewhat unkind (I cannot say unjust) to it. It is, indeed, no great thing; but as a very early example of literary criticism by pamphlet, which has lacked the modern reprinting accorded to Webbe, Puttenham, Daniel, and other critics of the same time, I thought it might find appropriate place here._)

A REPLY TO STEPHEN GOSSON'S SCHOOLE OF ABUSE IN DEFENCE OF POETRY, MUSICK, AND STAGE PLAYS.

_Protogenes_ can know _Apelles_ by his line though he se[e] him not, and wise men can consider by the Penn the aucthoritie of the writer, thoughe they know him not. The Rubie is discerned by his pale rednes, and who hath not h[e]ard that the Lyon is knowne by hys clawes. Though _Æsopes_ craftie crowe be never so deftlye decked, yet is his double dealing e[a]sely desiphered: and though men never so perfectly pollish there wrytings with others sentences, yet the simple truth wil discover the shadow of ther follies: and bestowing every fether in the bodye of the right M. tourne out the naked dissembler into his owen cote, as a spectacle of follye to all those which can rightlye judge what imperfections be.

There came to my hands lately a litle (woulde God a wittye) pamphelet, baring a fayre face as though it were the sc[h]oole of abuse, but being by me advisedly wayed I fynd it the oftscome of imperfections, the writer fuller of wordes than judgement; the matter certainely as ridiculus as seri[o]us. Asuredly his mother witte wrought this wonder, the child to disprayse his father, the dogg to byte his mayster for his dainty morcell. But I se[e] (with _Seneca_) yt the wrong is to be suffered, since he disprayseth, who by costome hath left to speake well; bot I meane to be short: and teach the Maister what he knoweth not, partly that he may se his owne follie, and partly that I may discharge my promise, both binde me. Therefore I would with the good scholmayster to over looke his abuses againe with me, so shall he see an ocean of inormities which begin in his first prinsiple in the disprayse of poetry.

And first let me familiarly consider with this find faulte what the learned have alwayes esteemed of poetrie. _Seneca_ thoughe a stoike would have a poeticall sonne, and amongst the auncientest _Homer_ was no les accompted than _Humanus deus_. What made Alexander I pray you esteme of him so much? Why allotted he for his works so curious a closset? Was ther no fitter under prop for his pillow the[n] a simple pamphelet? In all _Darius_ cofers was there no Jewell so costly? Forso[o]th my thinks these two (the one the father of Philosophers, the other the cheftaine of chivalrie) were both deceived if all were as a _Gosson_ would wish them, yf poets paynt naughte but palterie toyes in vearse, their studies tended to folishnesse, and in all their inde[a]vors they did naught els but _agendo nihil agere_. Lord how Virgil's poore gnatt pricketh him, and how Ovid's fley byteth him, he can beare no bourde, he hath raysed up a new sect of seri[o]us stoikes, that can abide naught but their owen shadowe, and alow nothing worthye, but what they conceave. Did you never reade (my over wittie frend) that under the persons of beastes many abuses were dissiphered? Have you not reason to waye? that whatsoever e[i]ther Virgil did write of his gnatt, or Ovid of his fley, was all covertly to declare abuse? But you are (_homo literatus_) a man of the letter, little savoring of learning, your giddy brain made you leave your thrift, and your abuses in London some part of your honestie. You say that Poets are subtil, if so, you have learned that poynt of them, you can well glose on a trifleling text: but you have dronke perhaps of _Lethe_, your gram[m]er learning is out of your head, you forget your Accidence, you reme[m]ber not that under the person of _Æneas_ in Virgil, the practice of a dilligent captaine is discribed, under ye shadow of byrds, beastes, and trees, the follies of the world were disiphered, you know not that the creation is signified in the Image of _Prometheus_, the fall of pryde in the person of _Narcissus_, these are toyes because they savour of wisedom which you want. Marke what _Campanus_ sayth, _Mira fabularum vanitas sed quæ si introspiciantur videri possunt non vanæ_. The vanitie of tales is wonderful, yet if we advisedly looke into them they wil seme and prove wise. How wonderful are the pithie poems of _Cato_! the curious comidies of _Plautus_! how bravely discovereth _Terence_ our imperfectio[n] in his _Eunuch_! how neatly dissiphereth he _Dauus_! how pleasauntly paynteth he out _Gnatho_! whom if we should seeke in our dayes, I suppose he would not be farr from your parson. But I see you woulde seeme to be that which you are not, and as the proverb sayth _Nodum in Cirpo quærere_. Poets you say use coullors to cover their incoviences, and wittie sentences to burnish theyr bawdery, and you divinite to cover your knaverye.

But tell mee truth _Gosson_, speakest thou as thou thinkest? What coelers findest thou in a Poete not to be admitted? Are his speaches unperfect? Savor they of inscience? I think if thou hast any shame thou canst not but like and approve the[m]. Are ther gods displesant unto thee? doth _Saturne_ in his majesty move thee? doth _Juno_ with her riches displease thee? doth _Minerva_ with her weapon discomfort thee? doth _Apollo_ with his harping harme thee? Thou mayst say nothing les then harme thee because they are not, and I thinke so to[o] because thou knowest them not. For wot thou that in the person of _Saturne_ our decaying yearss are signified, in the picture of angry _Juno_ our affections are dissiphered, in ye person of _Minerva_ is our understa[n]ding signified, both in respect of warre, as policie. When they faine that _Pallas_ was begotten of the braine of _Jupiter_ their meaning is none other but that al wisdome (as the learned say) is from above, and commeth from the father of Lights: in the portrature of _Apollo_ all knowledge is denocated. So that, what so they wrot it was to this purpose, in the way of pleasure to draw men to wisedome: for se[e]ing the world in those daies was unperfect, yt was necessary that they like good Phisi[ci]ons should so frame their potions, that they might be appliable to the quesie stomaks of their werish patients. But our studientes by your meanes have made shipwrack of theyr labors, our schoole-maisters have so offended that by your judgement they shall _subire poenam capitis_ for teaching poetry, the universitie is litle beholding to you, al their practices in teaching are frivolus. Witt hath wrought that in you, that yeares and studie never set[t]led in the heads of our sagest doctors.

No mervel though you disprayse poetrye, when you know not what it meanes. _Erasmus_ will make that the pathwaye to knowledge which you disprayse, and no meane fathers vouchsafe in their seriouse questions of divinitie, to inserte poeticall sensures.

I think if we shal wel overloke ye Philosophers, we shal find their judgeme[n]ts not halfe perfect. Poetes you say fayle in their fables, Philosophers in the verye secrets of Nature. Though _Plato_ could wish the expulsion of Poetes from his well publiques, which he might doe with reason, yet the wisest had not all that same opinion, it had bene better for him to have se[a]rcht more narowly what the soule was, for his definition was verye frivolus, when he would make it naught els but _Substantiam intelectu predictam_. If you say that Poetes did labour about nothing, tell me (I besech you) what wonders wroughte those your dunce Doctors in ther reasons _de ente et non ente_, in theyr definition of no force and les witt? How sweate they power soules in makinge more things then co[u]ld be! That I may use your owne phrase, did not they spende one candle by seeking another? _Democritus Epicurus_ with ther scholler _Metrodorus_ how labored they in finding out more worlds the[n] one? Your _Plato_ in midst of his presisnes wrought that absurdite that never may be redd in Poets, to make a yearthly creature to beare the person of the creator, and a corruptible substaunce an incomprehensible God: for determining of the principall causes of all thinges, a made them naughte els but an _Idea_ which if it be conferred wyth the truth, his sentence will savour of Inscience. But I speake for Poetes, I answeare your abuse, therefore I will disprove or disprayse naught, but wish you with the wise _Plato_, to disprayse that thing you offend not in.

_Seneca_ sayth that the studdie of Poets is to make childre[n] ready to the understanding of wisedom, and yt our auncients did teache _artes Eleutherias. i. liberales_, because the instructed childre[n] by the instrume[n]t of knowledg in time became _homines liberi. i. Philosophye_. It may be that in reding of poetry, it happened to you as it is with the Oyster, for she in her swimming receiveth no ayre, and you in your reeding lesse instruction. It is reported that the shepe of Euboia want ther gale, and one the contrarye side that the beastes of _Naxus_ have _distentum fel_. Men hope that scollers should have witt brought upp in the Universite, but your sweet selfe with the cattell of Euboia, since you left your College have lost your learning. You disprayse _Maximinus Tirius_ pollicey, and that thinge that he wrott to manifest learned Poets meaning, you atribute to follye. O holy hedded man, why may not _Juno_ resemble the ayre? why not _Alexander_ valour? why not _Ulisses_ pollice? Will you have all for you[r] owne tothe? Must men write that you maye know theyr meaning as though your wytt were to wrest all things? Alas simple _Irus_, begg at knowledge gate awhile, thou haste not wonne the mastery of learning. Weane thyself to wisedome, and use thy tallant in zeale not for envie, abuse not thy knowledge in dispraysing that which is pereles: I shold blush from a player, to become an enviouse preacher, if thou hadst zeale to preach, if for _Sions_ sake thou co[u]ldst not holde thy tongue, thy true dealing were prayse worthy, thy revolting woulde counsell me to reverence thee. Pittie weare it that poetrye should be displaced, full little could we want _Buchanan's_ workes, and _Boetius_ comfortes may not be banished. What made _Erasmus_ labor in _Euripides_ tragedies? Did he inde[a]vour by painting them out of Greeke into Latine to manifest sinne unto us, or to confirm us in goodnes? Labor (I pray thee) in Pamphelets more prayse worthy; thou haste not saved a Senator, therefore not worthye a Lawrell wre[a]th, thou hast not (in disproving poetry) reproved an abuse, and therfore not worthy commendation.

_Seneca_ sayth that _Magna vitæ pars elabitur male agentibus, maxima nihill agentibus, tota aliud agentibus_, the most of our life (sayd he) is spent e[i]ther in doing evill, or nothing, or that wee should not, and I would wish you weare exempted from this sensure. Geve eare but a little more what may be said for poetrie, for I must be briefe. You have made so greate matter that I may not stay on one thing to[o] long, lest I leave another untouched.

And first whereas you say, yt _Tullie_ in his yeres of more judgement despised Poetes, harke (I pray you) what he worketh for them in his oratio[n] _pro Archia poeta_. But before you heare him, least you fayle in the incounter, I would wysh you to follow the advise of the dasterdlye Ichneumon of _Ægipt_, who when shee beholdeth the Aspis her enemye to drawe nighe, calleth her fellowes together, bisme[a]ring herselfe with claye, against the byting and stroke of the serpent, arme yourselfe, cal your witts together: want not your wepons, lest your inperfect judgement be rewardede with Midas eares. You had neede play the night burd now, for yon day Owl hath misconned his parte, and for to-who now a dayes he cryes foole you: which hath brought such a sort of wondering birds about your eares, as I feare me will chatter you out of your Ivey bush. The worlde shames to see you, or els you are afrayde to shew yourselfe.

You thought poetrye should want a patron (I think) when you fyrste published this invective, but yet you fynd al to[o] many eve[n] _preter expectation[=e]_, yea though it can speake for it self, yet her patron _Tullie_ now shall tell her tale, _Hæc studia_, (sayth he) _adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac Solatium prebent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregri[n]antur rusticantur_. Then will you disprayse yt which all men commend? You looke only upon ye refuse of ye abuse, nether respecting the importance of ye matter nor the weighe of ye wryter.

_Solon_ can fayne himself madde, to further the Athenians. _Chaucer_ in pleasant vain can rebuke sin uncontrold, and though he be lavish in the letter, his sence is serious. Who in Rome lame[n]ted not Roscius death? And ca[n]st thou suck no plesure out of thy _M. Claudians_ writings? Hark what _Cellarius_ a learned father attributed to it, _acuit memoriam_ (saith he) it profiteth the memory. Yea, and _Tully_ attributeth it for prais to _Archias_ yt upon any theame he co[u]ld versify exte[m]pory. Who liketh not of the promptness of _Ovid_? Who not unworthely co[u]ld boast of himself thus _Quicquid conabar dicere versus erat_. Who then doothe not wonder at poetry? Who thinketh not yt it procedeth fro[m] above? What made ye Chians and Colophonians fal to such controversy? Why seke ye Smirnians to recover fro[m] ye Salaminians the prais of _Homer_? Al wold have him to be of ther city, I hope not for harme, but because of his knoledge. _Themistocles_ desireth to be acquainted with those w^c could best discipher his praises. Even _Marius_ himselfe, tho never so cruel, acco[m]pted of _Plotinus_ poems. What made _Aphricanus_ esteme _Ennius_? Why did Alexander give prais to _Achilles_ but for ye prayses which he found writte[n] of hym by _Homer_? Why estemed _Pompie_ so muche of _Theophanes Mitiletus_, or _Brutus_ so greatlye the wrytinges of _Accius_? _Fuluius_ was so great a favorer of poetry, that after the Aetolian warres, he attributed to the Muses those spoiles that belonged to Mars. In all the Romaine conquest, h[e]ardest thou ever of a slayne Poete? nay rather the Emperours honored them, beautified them with benefites, and decked their sanctuaries which [with] sacrifice. _Pindarus_ colledg is not fit for spoil of _Alexander_ overcome, nether feareth poetry ye persecutors sword. What made _Austin_ so much affectate ye heavenly fury? not folly, for if I must needes speake, _illud non ausim affirmare_, his zeale was in setting up the house of God, not in affectate eloquence, he wrot not, he accompted not. He honnored not, so much that (famous poetry) whyche we prayse, without cause, for if it be true that _Horace_ reporteth in his booke _de arte poetica_, all the answeares of the Oracles weare in verse. Among the precise Jewes you shall find Poetes, and for more majestie _Sibilla_ will prophesie in verse. _Hiroaldus_ can witnes with me, that _David_ was a poet, and that his vayne was in imitating (as S. Jerom witnesseth) _Horace_, _Flaccus_, and _Pindarus_, somtimes his verse runneth in an _Iambus_ foote, anone he hath recourse to a _Saphier_ vaine, and _aliquando, semipede ingreditur_. Ask _Josephus_, and he will tel you that Esay, Job and Salomon voutsafed poetical practises, for (if _Origen_ and he fault not) theyre verse was _Hexameter and pentameter_. Enquire of _Cassiodorus_, he will say that all the beginning of Poetrye proceeded from the Scripture. _Paulinus_ tho the byshop of _Nolanum_ yet voutsafe the name of a Poet, and _Ambrose_ tho he be a patriarke in _mediolan[=u]_ loveth versising. _Beda_ shameth not ye science that shamelesse _Gosson_ misliketh. Reade over _Lactantius_, his proofe is by poetry, and _Paul_ voutsafeth to overlooke _Epimenides_; let the Apostle preach at Athens he disdaineth not of Aratus authorite. It is a pretye sentence yet not so prety as pithy, _Poeta nascitur orator fit_, as who should say, Poetrye commeth from above from a heavenly seate of a glorious God unto an excellent creature man, an orator is but made by exercise. For if wee examine well what befell _Ennius_ amonge the Romans, and Hesiodus among his co[u]ntrimen the Gretians, howe they came by theyr knowledge whence they receved their heavenly furye, the first will tell us that sleping upon the Mount of Parnassus he dreamed that he received the soule of _Homer_ into him, after the which he became a Poete, the next will assure you that it commeth not by labor, nether that night watchings bringeth it, but yt we must have it thence whence he fetched it w^c was (he saith) fro[m] a wel of ye Muses w^c _Cabelimus_ calleth _Por[=u]_, a draught whereof drewe him to his perfection, so of a shephard he becam an eloque[n]t poet.

Wel the[n] you see yt it commeth not by exercise of play making, nether insertio[n] of gawds, but from nature and from above: and I hope yt _Aristotle_ hath sufficiently taught you that _Natura nihil fecit frustra_.

_Perseus_ was made a poete _divino furore percitus_. And whereas the poets were sayde to call for the Muses helpe ther mening was no other as _Iodocus Badius_ reporteth, but to call for heavenly inspiration from above to direct theyr ende[a]vors. Nether were it good for you to sette light by the name of a poet since ye oftspring from whence he cometh is so heavenly. _Sibilla_ in hir answers to _Æneas_ against hir will as the poet telleth us was possessed with thys fury, ye wey consideratly but of the writing of poets, and you shal se[e] than whe[n] ther matter is most heavenly, their stile is most loftye, a strange token of the wonderfull efficacy of the same.

I would make a long discourse unto you of _Platos_ 4. furies but I le[a]ve them. It pitieth me to bring a rodd of your owne making to beate you wythal. But mithinks while you heare thys I see you swallowe down your owne spittle for revenge, where (God wot) my wryting savoreth not of envye. In this case I coulde wyshe you fare farre otherwyse from your foe. If you please I wyll become your frende and see what a potion or receypt I can frame fytt for your diet. And herein I will prove myselfe a practiser, before I purdge you, you shall take a preparative to disburden your heavy hedde of those grose follis you have conceved: but the receipt is bitter, therefore I would wysh you first to casten your mouth with the Suger of persevera[n]ce: for ther is a cold collop yt must downe your throate yet suche a one as shall change your complection quit[e]. I wyll have you therfore to tast first of yt cold river _Phricus_ in Thratia, which as _Aristotle_ reporteth changeth blacke into white; or of Scamandar, which maketh gray yalow, yt is of an envious ma[n] a wel minded person, reprehending of zeale yt wherin he hath sinned by folly, and so being prepard, thy purgation wyll worke more easy, thy understandinge wyll be more perfit, thou shalt blush at thy abuse, and reclaime thy selfe by force of argument. So will thou prove of clene recovered patient, and I a perfecte practiser in framing so good a potion. This broughte to passe, I with the[e] wil seeke out some abuse in poetry, which I will seeke for to disprove by reason first pronounced by no smal birde even _Aristotle_ himself. _Poetae_ (sayth he) _multa mentiuntur_ and to further his opinion seuer _Cato_ putteth in his cencure.

_Admiranda canunt sed non credenda poetæ._ These were sore blemishes if objected rightly and heare you may say the streme runnes a wronge, but if it be so by you[r] leve I wyll bring him shortly in his right chanel. My answere shall not be my owne, but a learned father shall tell my tale, if you wil know his right name men call him _Lactantius_: who in hys book _de divinis institutionibus_ reesoneth thus. I suppose (sayth he) Poets are full of credit, and yet it is requesite for those that wil understand them to be admonished, that among them not onely the name but the matter beareth a show of that it is not: for if sayth he we examine the Scriptures litterallye nothing will seeme more falls, and if we way Poetes wordes and not ther meaning, our learning in them wilbe very mene. You see nowe your _Catoes_ judgement as of no force and that all your objections you make agaynst poetrye be of no valor, yet lest you should be altogether discouraged I wyll helpe you forwarde a little more, it pities me to consider the weaknes of your cause, I wyll therfore make your strongest reason more strong and after I have builded it up destroy it agayn. Poets you confesse are eloquent but you reprove them in their wantonnesse, they write of no wisedom, you may say their tales are frivolus, they prophane holy thinges, they seeke nothing to the perfection of our soules. Theyr practise is in other things of lesse force: to this objection I answer no otherwise then _Horace_ doeth in his booke _de arte poetica_ where he wryteth thus:

_Silvestres homines sacer interpresque deorum
Sedibus, et victu foedo deterruit orpheus.
Dictus ob hoc lenire Tigres rabidosque leones.
Dictus et Amphion Thebanæ condit[or] urbis
Saxa movere sono, testudinis et prece blanda
Ducere quo vellet. Fuit hoc sapientia quondam,
Publica privatis secernere sacra prophanis,
Concubitu prohibere vago, dare Iura maritis,
Oppida moliri, leges incidere ligno._

The holy spokesman of the Gods
With heave[n]ly Orpheus hight:
Did drive the savage men from wods,
And made them live aright.
And therefore is sayd the Tygers fierce,
And Lyons full of myght
To overcome: _Amphion_, he
Was sayd of Theabs the founder,
Who by his force of Lute dyd cause
The stones to part a sonder,
And by his speach did them derect
Where he would have them staye:
This wisedome this was it of olde
All strife for to allaye.
To give to every man his owne,
To make the Gods be knowne,
To drive each lecher from the bed
That never was his owne.
To teach the law of mariage,
The way to build a towne,
For to engrave these lawes in woods
This was these mens renowne.

I cannot leave _Tirtheus_ pollicy untouched, who by force of his pen could incite men to the defence of theyr countrye. If you require of ye Oracle of _Apollo_ what successe you shal have: _respondet bellicoso numine_. Lo now you see your objections my answers, you behold or may perceive manifestlye that Poetes was the first raysors of cities, prescribers of good lawes, mayntayners of religion, disturbors of the wicked, advancers of the wel disposed, inve[n]tors of laws, and lastly the very fo[o]tpaths to knowledg and understa[n]ding. Ye if we sho[u]ld beleve Herome he will make _Platos_ exiles honest me[n] and his pestiferous poets good preachers: for he accounteth _Orpheus Museus and Linus, Christians_, therefore _Virgil_ (in his 6 boke of _Æneiados_ wher he lernedly describeth ye journey of _Æneas_ to _Elisum_) asserteneth us, yt among them yt were ther for the zeale they beare toward there country, ther wer found _Quinque pii vates et Phoebo digna loquti_ but I must answer al objectio[n]s, I must fil every nooke. I must arme myself now, for here is the greatest bob I can gather out of your booke forsoth _Ovids_ abuses, in descrybing whereof you labour very vehementlye termi[n]g him letcher, and in his person dispraise all poems, but shall on[e] mans follye destroye a universal comodity? What gift what perfit knowledg hath ther bin, emong ye professors of w^c ther hath not bin a bad on [?] the Angels have sinned in heave[n], _Ada[m] and Eve_ in earthly paradise, emo[n]g ye holy apostles ungratious Judas. I reson not yt al poets are holy but I affirme yt poetry is a heave[n]ly gift, a perfit gift then which I know not greater plesure. And surely if I may speak my mind I thi[n]k we shall find but few poets if it were exactly wayd what they oughte to be: your _Muscovian_ straungers, your _Scithian_ monsters wonderful, by one _Eurus_ brought upon one stage in ships made of Sheepeskins, wyll not prove you a poet nether your life alow you to bee of that learning: if you had wisely wayed ye abuse of poetry, if you had reprehended ye foolish fantasies of our poets _nomine non re_ which they bring forth on stage, my self would have liked of you and allowed your labor. But I perceive nowe yt all red colloured stones are not Rubies, nether is every one _Alexandar_ yt hath a stare in his cheeke, al lame men are not _Vulcans_, nor hooke nosed men _Ciceroes_, nether each professer a poet, I abhore those poets that savor of ribaldry, I will with the zealous admit the expullcion of suche enormities. Poetry is dispraised not for the folly that is in it, but for the abuse whiche manye ill Wryters couller by it. Beleeve me the magestrats may take advise (as I knowe wisely can) to roote out those odd rymes which runnes in every rascales mouth. Savoring of rybaldry, those foolishe ballets that are admitted make poets good and godly practises to be refused. I like not of a wicked _Nero_ that wyll expell _Lucan_, yet admit I of a zealous governour that wil seke to take away the abuse of poetry. I like not of an angrye _Augustus_ which wyll banishe _Ovid_ for envy. I love a wise Senator, which in wisedome wyll correct him and with advise burne his follyes: unhappy were we yf like poore _Scaurus_ we shoulde find _Tiberius_ that wyll put us to death for a tragedy making, but most blessed were we if we might find a judge that severely would amende the abuses of Tragedies. But I leave the reformation thereof to more wyser than my selfe, and retourne to Gosson whom I wyshe to be fully perswaded in this cause, and therefore I will tell hym a prety story, which _Justin_ wryteth in the prayse of poetrye.

The _Lacedemonians_ when they had loste many men in divers incountryes with theyr enemyes soughte to the Oracles of Apollo requiring how they myght recover theyr losses, it was answered that they mighte overcome if so be they could get an _Athenian_ governor, whereupon they sent Orators unto the _Athenians_ humbly requesting them that they woulde appoynt them out one of theyr best captaynes: the _Athenians_ owinge them old malice, sent them in steede of a _soldado vechio_ a scholar of the Muses: in steede of a worthy warrior a poore poet; for a couragious _Themistocles_ a silly _Tirthetus_, a man of great eloquence and singuler wytte, yet was he but a lame lymde captaine more fit for the co[u]che than the field. The _Lacedemonians_ trusting the Oracle, received the champion, and fearing the government of a stranger, made him ther Citizen. Which once done and he obteining the Dukdome, he assended the theater, and ther very learnedly, wyshing them to forget theyr folly, and to thinke on victory, they being acuate by his eloque[n]ce waging battail won the fielde. Lo now you see that the framing of common welthes, and defence thereof proceedeth from poets, how dare you therfore open your mouth against them? How can you disprayse the preserver of a countrye? You compare _Homer_ to _Methecus_, cookes to Poetes, you shame your selfe in your unreverent similitud[e]s, you may see your follyes _verbum sapienti sat_: whereas _Homar_ was an ancient poet you disalow him, and accompte of those of lesser judgement. _Strabo_ calleth poetry _primam sapientiam_. Cicero in his firste of his Tusculans attributeth ye invencion of philosophy to poets. God keepe us from a Plato that should expel such men. Pittie were it that the memory of these valiant victours should be hidden, which have dyed in the behalfe of ther countryes: miserable were our state yf we wanted those worthy volumes of poetry. Could the learned beare the losse of Homer? or our younglings the wrytings of the _Mantuan_? or you your volumes of historyes? beleve me yf you had wanted your Mysteries of nature, and your stately storyes, your booke would have scarce bene ledde wyth matter. If therefore you will deale in things of wisdome, correct the abuse, honor the science, renewe your schoole, crye out over Hierusalem wyth the prophet the woe that he pronounced, wish the teacher to reforme hys lyfe, that his weake scholler may prove the wyser, cry out against unsaciable desyre in rich men, tel the house of Jacob theyr iniquities, lament with the Apostle the want of laborers in the Lords vineyards, cry out on those dume doggs that will not barke, wyll the mightye that they overmayster not the poore, and put downe the beggers prowde heart by thy perswasions. Thunder oute with the Prophete _Micha_ the mesage of the LORD, and with hym desyre the Judges to heare thee, the Prynces of Jacob to hearken to thee, and those of the house of Israell to understande. Then tell them that they abhorre judgement, and prevent equitie, that they judge for rewardes, and that theyr priests teach for hyre, and the prophets thereof prophesie for money, and yet that they saye the Lorde is wyth them, and that no evil can befall them, breath[e] out the sweete promises to the good, the cursses to the badde, tell them that a peeace muste needes have a warre, and that God can raise up another Zenacherib, shew the[m] that Salomons kingdome was but for a season and that adversitie cometh ere we espye it. These be the songes of Sion, these be those rebukes which you oughte to add to abuses; recover the body for it is sore, the appedices thereof will easily be reformed, if that wear at a staye.

But other matters call me and I must not staye upon this onely, there is an easier task in hand for me, and that which, if I may speak my conscience, fitteth my vain best, your second abuse Gosson, your second abuse; your disprayses of Musik, which you unadvisedly terme pyping: that is it will most byte you, what so is a overstay of life, is displesant to your person, musik may not stand in your presence, whereas all the learned Philosophers have alwayes had it in reverence. _Homar_ commendeth it highly, referring to the prayses of the Gods whiche Gosson accompteth folishnesse; looke uppon the harmonie of the Heavens; hang they not by Musik? Doe not the _Spheares_ move? The _primus_ motor governe[s], be not they _inferiora corpora_ affected _quadam sumpathia_ and agreement? Howe can we measure the debilitie of the patient but by the disordered motion of the pulse? Is not man worse accompted of when he is most out of tune? Is there any thinge that more affecteth the sense? Doth there any pleasure more acuat our understanding? Can the wonders yt hath wroughte and which you your selfe confesse no more move you? It fitteth well nowe that the learned have sayd, _musica requirit generosum animu[m]_ which since it is far from you, no marvel though you favor not that profession. It is reported of the _Camelion_ that shee can chaunge her selfe unto all coollors save whyte, and you can accompte of all thinges save such as have honesty. _Plutarch_ your good Mayster may bare me witness that the ende whereto Musick was, will proove it prayes worthy. O Lord howe maketh it a man to remember heavenly things to wo[n]der at the works of the creator. _Eloquence_ can stay the souldiars sworde from slayinge an Orator, and shall not musike be magnified which not onely saveth the bodye but is a comfort to the soule? David rejoyseth singeth and prayeth the Lorde by the Harpe, and the Simbale is not removed from his sanctuary, the Aungels syng _gloria in excelsis_. Surely the imagination in this present instant calleth me to a deepe consideration of my God. Looke for wonders where musike worketh, and wher harmonie is ther followeth increcible delectation. The bowels of the earth y[i]eld where the instrument soundeth and _Pluto_ cannot keepe _Proserpina_ if _Orpheus_ recorde. The Seas shall not swallowe _Arion_ whilst he singeth, nether shall hee perish while he harpeth, a doleful tuner yf a diing musition can move a Monster of ye sea to mourne. A Dolphin respectet a heavenly recorde.

Call your selfe home therefore and reclayme thys follye, it is to[o] foule to bee admitted, you may not mayntaine it. I hadd well hoped you woulde in all these thynges have wiselye admytted the thyng, and disalowe naughte but the abus, but I see your mynde in youre wrytinge was to penn somewhat you knowe not what, and to confyrme it I wot not howe, so that yourselfe hath hatched us an Egge yet so that it hath blest us wyth a monsterus chickin, both wythoute hedde, and also tayle, lyke the Father, full of imperfection and lesse zeale. Well marke yet a lyttle more, beare with me though I be bytter, my love is never the lesse for that I have learned of _Tullye_, that _Nulla remedia tam faciunt dolorem quam quæ sunt salutaria_, the sharper medycine the better it cures, the more you see your follye, the sooner may you amend it. Are not the straines in Musike to tickle and delyght the eare? are not our warlike instruments to move men to valor? you confesse they moove us, but yet they delight not our eares? I pray you whence grew that poynt of Phylosophy? It is more then ever my Mayster taught mee, that a thynge of sounde shoulde not delyghte the eare. Belyke yee suppose that men are monsters, withoute eares, or else I thynke you wyll saye they heare with theire heeles, it may bee so; for indeede when wee are delighted with Musike, it maketh our heart to scypp for joye, and it maye bee perhaps by assending from the heele to the hygher partes, it may move us, good policie in sooth, this was of your owne coyning, your mother never taught it you, but I wyll not deale by reason of philosophye wyth you for that confound your senses, but I can asure you this one thinge, that this principle will make the wiser to mislike your invention, it had bene a fitter jest for your howlet in your playe, then an orname[n]t in your booke. But since you wrote of abuses, we may licence you to lye a little, so ye abuse will be more manifest. Lord with how goodly a cote have you clothed your conceiptes, you abound in storyes but impertinent, they bewray your reeding but not your wisedom, would God they had bin well aplyed. But now I must play the musitian right nolesse buggs now come in place but pavions and mesures, dumps and fancies, and here growes a great question what musick _Homer_ used in curing ye diseased gretians, it was no dump you say, and so think I, for yt is not apliable to sick men, for it favoreth Malancholie. I am sure it was no mesure, for in those days they were not such good da[n]sers, for so[o]th the[n] what was it? If you require me, if you name me the instrume[n]t, I wyl tel you what was ye musik. Meanwhile a gods name let us both dout yt is no part of our salvation to know what it was nor how it went. When I speak with _Homer_ next you shall knowe his answere.