" The French, of the other side,
hath both the male, as "bon," "son," and the female, as "plaise,"
"taise;" but the "sdrucciola" he hath not; where the English hath
all three, as "due," "true," "father," "rather," "motion," "potion;"
with much more which might be said, but that already I find the
trifling of this discourse is much too much enlarged.
So {97} that since the ever praiseworthy poesy is full of virtue,
breeding delightfulness, and void of no gift that ought to be in the
noble name of learning; since the blames laid against it are either
false or feeble; since the cause why it is not esteemed in England
is the fault of poet-apes, not poets; since, lastly, our tongue is
most fit to honour poesy, and to be honoured by poesy; I conjure you
all that have had the evil luck to read this ink-wasting toy of
mine, even in the name of the Nine Muses, no more to scorn the
sacred mysteries of poesy; no more to laugh at the name of poets, as
though they were next inheritors to fools; no more to jest at the
reverend title of "a rhymer;" but to believe, with Aristotle, that
they were the ancient treasurers of the Grecian's divinity; to
believe, with Bembus, that they were the first bringers in of all
civility; to believe, with Scaliger, that no philosopher's precepts
can sooner make you an honest man, than the reading of Virgil; to
believe, with Clauserus, the translator of Cornutus, that it pleased
the heavenly deity by Hesiod and Homer, under the veil of fables, to
give us all knowledge, logic, rhetoric, philosophy natural and
moral, and "quid non?" to believe, with me, that there are many
mysteries contained in poetry, which of purpose were written darkly,
lest by profane wits it should be abused; to believe, with Landin,
that they are so beloved of the gods that whatsoever they write
proceeds of a divine fury.
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