Now {63} then go we to the most important imputations laid to the
poor poets; for aught I can yet learn, they are these.
First, that there being many other more fruitful knowledges, a man
might better spend his time in them than in this.
Secondly, that it is the mother of lies.
Thirdly, that it is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with many
pestilent desires, with a syren sweetness, drawing the mind to the
serpent's tail of sinful fancies; and herein, especially, comedies
give the largest field to ear, as Chaucer saith; how, both in other
nations and ours, before poets did soften us, we were full of
courage, given to martial exercises, the pillars of manlike liberty,
and not lulled asleep in shady idleness with poets' pastimes.
And lastly and chiefly, they cry out with open mouth, as if they had
overshot Robin Hood, that Plato banished them out of his
commonwealth. Truly this is much, if there be much truth in it.
First, {64} to the first, that a man might better spend his time, is
a reason indeed; but it doth, as they say, but "petere principium."
{65} For if it be, as I affirm, that no learning is so good as that
which teacheth and moveth to virtue, and that none can both teach
and move thereto so much as poesy, then is the conclusion manifest,
that ink and paper cannot be to a more profitable purpose employed.
And certainly, though a man should grant their first assumption, it
should follow, methinks, very unwillingly, that good is not good
because better is better.
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