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A Defence of Poesie 
 
 and 
 
 Poems 
 
 By Sir Philip Sidney 
 
 Cassell and Company, Limited 
 
 London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 
 
 1909 
 
ft»^-,«^««»^''*«"- 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RliSERVED 
 

 INTKODUCTION 
 
 Philip Sidney was born at Penshurst, in Kent, on 
 the 29tli of November, 1554. His father, Sir Henry 
 Sidney, had married Mary, eldest daughter of John 
 Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and Philip was the 
 eldest of their family of three sons and four daughters. 
 Edmund Spenser and Walter Raleigh were of like age 
 with Philip Sidney, differing only by about a year, and 
 when Elizabeth became queen, on the 17th of Novem- 
 ber, 1558, they were children of four or five years old. 
 In the year 1560 Sir Henry Sidney was made Lord 
 President of Wales, representing the Queen in Wales 
 and the four adjacent western counties, as a Lord 
 Deputy represented her in Ireland. The official resid- 
 ence of the Lord President was at Ludlow Castle, to 
 which Philip Sidney went with his family when a 
 cliild of six. In the same year his father was installed 
 as a Knight of the Garter. When in his tenth year 
 Philip Sidney was sent from Ludlow to Shrewsbury 
 Grammar School, where he studied for three or four 
 years, and had among his schoolfellows Fulke Greville, 
 afterwards Lord Brooke, who remained until the end 
 of Sidney's life one of his closest friends. When he 
 himself was dying he directed that he should be de- 
 scribed upon his tomb as " Fulke Greville, servant to 
 Queen Elizabeth, counsellor to King James, and friend 
 to Sir Philip Sidney." Even Dr. Thomas Thornton, 
 Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, under whom Sidney 
 
 513430 
 
6 INTRODOOilON. 
 
 was placed when he was entered to Christ Church in 
 his fourteenth year, at Midsummer, in 1568, had it 
 afterwards recorded on his tomb that he was "the 
 tutor of Sir Philip Sidney." 
 
 Sidney was in his eighteenth year in May, 1572, 
 when he left the University to continue his training 
 for the service of the state, by travel on the Continent. 
 Licensed to travel with horses for himself and three 
 servants, Philip Sidney left London in the train of the 
 Earl of Lincoln, who was going out as ambassador to 
 Charles IX., in Paris. He was in Paris on the 24th 
 of August in that year, which was the day of the 
 Massacre of St. Bartholomew. He was sheltered from 
 the dangers of that day in the house of the English 
 Ambassador, Sir Francis Walsingham, whose daughter 
 Fanny Sidney married twelve years afterwards. 
 
 From Paris Sidney travelled on by way of Heidelberg 
 to Frankfort, where he lodged at a printer's, and found 
 a warm friend in Hubert Languet, whose letters to him 
 have been published . Sidney was eighteen and Languet 
 fifty-five, a French Huguenot, learned and zealous foi 
 the Protestant cause, who had been Professor of Civil 
 Law in Padua, and who was acting as secret ministei 
 for the Elector of Saxony when he first knew Sidney, 
 and saw in him a future statesman whose character and 
 genius would give him weight in the counsels of Eng- 
 land, and make him a main hope of the Protestant 
 cause in Europe. Sidney travelled on with Hubert 
 Languet from Frankfort to Vienna, visited Hungary, 
 then passed to Italy, making for eight weeks Yenice 
 his head-quarters, and then giving six weeks to Padua. 
 He returned through Germany to Eugland. and was in 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 attendance at the Court of Qneou Elizabeth in July, 
 1575. Next month his father was sent to Ireland as Lord 
 Deputy, and Sidney lived in London with his mother. 
 
 At this time the opposition of the Mayor and Corpor- 
 ation of the City of London to the acting of plays 
 by servants of Sidney's uncle, the Earl of Leicester, 
 who had obtained a patent for them, obliged the actors 
 to cease from hiring rooms or inn yards in the City, and 
 build themselves a house of their own a little way out- 
 side one of the City gates, and wholly outside the Lord 
 Mayor's jurisdiction. Thus the first theatre came to 
 be built in England in the year 1576. Shakespeare 
 was then but twelve years old, and it was ten years 
 later that he came to London. 
 
 In February, 1577, Philip Sidney, not yet twenty— 
 three years old, was sent on a formal embassy of con- 
 gratulation to Rudolph II. upon his becoming Emperor 
 of Germany, but under the duties of the formal embassy 
 was the charge of watching for opportunities of helping 
 forward a Protestant League among the princes of 
 Germany. On his way home through the Netherlands 
 he was to convey Queen Elizabeth's congratulations to 
 William of Orange on the birth of his first child, and 
 what impression he made upon that leader of men is 
 shown by a message William sent afterwards through 
 Fulke Greville to Queen Elizabeth. He said " that if 
 he could judge, her Majesty had one of the ripest and 
 greatest counsellors of State in Philip Sidney that then 
 lived in Europe ; to the trial of which he was pleased 
 to leave his own credit engaged until her Majesty was 
 pleased to employ this gentleman, either among^st her 
 friends or enemies." 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Sidney returned from his embassy in June, 1577. At 
 the time of his departure, in the preceding February, 
 his sister Mary, then twenty years old, had become the 
 third wife of Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and 
 her new home as Countess of Pembroke was in the 
 great house at Wilton, about three miles from Salis- 
 bury. She had a measure of her brother's genius, and 
 was of like noble strain. Spenser described her as 
 
 " The gentlest shepherdess that lives this day, 
 And most resembling, both in shape and spright, 
 Her brother dear." 
 
 Ben Jonson, long after her brother had passed from 
 earth, wrote upon her death the well-known epitaph : — 
 
 " Underneath this sable herse 
 Lies the subject of all verse, 
 Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother. 
 Death, ere thou hast slain another, 
 Learn'd, and fair, and good as she, 
 Time shall throw a dart at thee." 
 
 Sidney's sister became Pembroke's mother in 1580, 
 while her brother Philip was staying with her at 
 Wilton. He had early in the year written a long 
 argument to the Queen against the project of her 
 marriage with the Duke of Anjou, which she then found 
 it politic to seem to favour. Slie liked Sidney well, 
 but resented, or appeared to resent, his intrusion of 
 advice ; he also was discontented with what seemed to 
 be her policy, and he withdrew from Court for a time. 
 That time of seclusion, after the end of March, 1580, 
 he spent with his sister at Wilton. They versified 
 psalms together ; and he began to write for her amuse- 
 
INTRODTTCTION. 9 
 
 ment, when she had her baby first upon her hands, his 
 romance of " Arcadia." It was never finished. Much 
 was written at Wilton in the summer of 1580, the 
 rest in 1581, written, as he said in a letter to her, 
 " only for you, only to you . . . for severer eyes 
 it is not, being but a trifle, triflingly handled. Your 
 dear self can best witness the manner, being done in 
 loose sheets of paper, most of it in your presence, the 
 rest by sheets sent unto you as fast as they were done." 
 He never meant that it should be published ; indeed, 
 when dying he asked that it should be destroyed ; but 
 it belonged to a sister who prized the lightest word of 
 his, and after his death it was published in 1590 as 
 " The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia." 
 
 The book reprinted in this volume was written in 
 1581, while sheets of the " Arcadia " were still beii>g 
 sent to "Wilton. But it differs wholly in style from 
 the "Arcadia." Sidney's "Arcadia" has literary 
 interest as the first important example of the union of 
 pastoral with heroic romance, out of which came pre- 
 sently, in France, a distinct school of fiction. But the 
 genius of its author was at play, it followed design- 
 edly the fashions of the hour in verse and prose, which 
 tended to extravagance of ingenuity. The " Defence of 
 Poesy " has higher interest as the first important piece 
 of literary criticism in our literature. Here Sidney 
 was in earnest. His style is wholly free from the 
 euphuistic extravagance in which readers of his time 
 delighted : it is clear, direct, and manly ; not the less, 
 but the more, thoughtful and refined for its unaffected 
 simplicity. As criticism it is of the true sort; not 
 captious or formal, still less engaged, as nearly all bad 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 criticism is, more or less, with indirect suggestion of 
 the critic himseKj as the one owl in a world of mice. 
 Philip Sidney's care is towards the end of good litera- 
 ture. He looks for highest aims, and finds them in 
 true work, and hears God's angel in the poet's song. 
 
 The writing of this piece was probably suggested to 
 him by the fact that an earnest young student, Stephen 
 Gosson, who came from his university about the time 
 when the first theatres were built, and wrote plays, 
 was turned by the bias of his mind into agreement 
 with the Puritan attacks made by the pulpit on the 
 stage (arising chiefly from the fact that plays were then 
 acted on Sundays), and in 1579 transferred his pen 
 from service of the players to attack on them, in a 
 piece which he called '* The School of Abuse, contain- 
 ing a Pleasant Invective against Poets, Pipers, Players, 
 Jesters, and such like Caterpillars of a Commonwealth ; 
 setting up the Flag of Defiance to their mischievous 
 exercise, and overthrowing their Bulwarks, by Profane 
 Writers, Natural Reason, and Common Experience : a 
 Discourse as pleasant for Gentlemen that favour Learn- 
 ing as profitable for all that will follow Yirtue." This 
 Discourse Gosson dedicated " To the right noble Gen 
 tleman, Master Philip Sidney, Esquire." Sidney him- 
 self wrote verse, he was companion with the poets, and 
 counted Edmund Spenser among his friends. Gosson's 
 pamphlet was only one expression of the narrow form 
 of Puritan opinion that had been misled into attacks on 
 poetry and music as feeders of idle appetite that with- 
 drew men from the life of duty. To show the fallacy 
 in such opinion, Philip Sidney wrote in 1581 this piece, 
 which was first printed in 1595. nine years after his 
 
INTIiODUCTION. 11 
 
 death, as a separate publication, entitled " An Apologie 
 for Poetrie." Three years afterwards it was added, 
 with other pieces, to the third edition of his " Arcadia," 
 and then entitled " The Defence of Poesie." In six- 
 teen subsequent editions it continued to appear as " The 
 Defence of Poesie." The same title was used in the 
 separate editions of 1752 and 1810. Professor Edward 
 Arber re-issued in 1869 the text of the first edition of 
 1595, and restored the original title, which probably 
 was that given to the piece by its author. One name 
 is as good as the other, but as the word " apology " has 
 somewhat changed its sense in current English, it may 
 be well to go on calling the work *' The Defence of 
 Poesie." 
 
 In 1583 Sidney was knighted, and soon afterwards 
 in the same year he married Frances, daugliter of Sir 
 Francis Waisingham. Sonnets written by him ac- 
 cording to old fashion, and addressed to a lady in 
 accordance with a form of courtesy that in the same 
 old fashion had always been held to exclude personal 
 suit — personal suit was private, and not public — have 
 led to grave misapprehension among some critics. 
 They supposed that he desired marriage with Penelope 
 Devereux, who was forced by her family in 1580 — then 
 eighteen years old — into a hateful marriage with Lord 
 Rich. It may be enough to say that if Philip Sidney 
 had desired her for his wife, he had only to ask for 
 her and have her. Her father, when dying, had 
 desired — as any father might — that his daughter might 
 become the wife of Philip Sidney. But this is not the 
 place for a discussion of Astrophel and Stella sonnets. 
 
 In 1585 Sidney was planning to join Drake at sea 
 
i-2 INTRODUCTION 
 
 in attack ou Spain in the West Indies. He was stayed 
 by the Qu'?en. But when Elizabeth declared war on 
 behalf of the Reformed Faith, and sent Leicester with 
 an expedition to the Netherlands, Sir Philip Sidney 
 went out, in November, 1585, as Governor of Flushing. 
 His wife joined him there. He fretted at inaction, and 
 made the value of his counsels so distinct that his 
 uncle Leicester said after his death that he began by 
 " despising his youth for a counsellor, not without 
 bearing a hand over him as a forward young man. 
 Notwithstanding, in a short time he^saw the sun so 
 risen above his horizon that both he and all his stars 
 were glad to fetch light from him." In May, 1586, Sir 
 Philip Sidney received news of the death of his father. 
 In August his mother died. In September he joined 
 in the investment of Zutphen, On the 22nd of Sept- 
 ember his thigh-bone was shattered by a musket ball 
 from the trenches. His horse took fright and galloped 
 back, but the wounded man held to his seat. He was 
 then carried to his uncle, asked for water, and when it 
 was given, saw a dyiug soldier carried past, who eyed 
 it greedily. At once he gave the water to the soldier, 
 saying, " Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." 
 Sidney lived on, patient in suffering, until the 17th of 
 October. When he was speechless before death, one 
 who stood by asked Philip Sidney for a sign of his 
 continued trust in God. He folded his hands as iu 
 prayer over his breast, and so they were become fixed 
 and chill, when the watchers placed them by his side ; 
 [ and in a few minutes the stainless representative of the 
 young manhood of Elizabethan England passed away. 
 
 H. m! 
 
An Apologie for Poetrie 
 
 When the right virtuous Edward Wotton^ and T 
 were at the Emperor's court together, we gave our- 
 selves to learn horsemanship of Gio. Pietro Pug- 
 liano ; one that, with great commendation, had the 
 place of an esquire in his stable ; and he, according 
 to the fertileness of the Italian wit, did not only 
 afford us the demonstration of his practice, but 
 sought to enrich our minds with the contemplation 
 therein, which he thought most precious. But with 
 none, I remember, mine ears were at any time 
 more laden, than when (either angered with slow 
 payment, or moved with our learner-like admira- 
 tion) he exercised his speech in the praise of his 
 faculty. 
 
 1 Edward Wotton, elder brother of Sir Henry Wotton. He 
 was knighted by Elizabeth in 1592, and made Comptroller of 
 her Household. Observe the playfulness in Sidney's opening 
 and close of a treatise written throughout in plain, manly 
 English without Euphuism, and strictly reasoned. 
 
14 A DEFENCE OF POESIB. 
 
 ' 'He said', soldiers were the noblest estate of man- 
 kind, and horsemen the noblest of soldiers. He 
 said, they were the masters of war and ornaments 
 of peace, speedy goers, and strong abiders, trium- 
 phers both in camps and courts ; nay, to so un- 
 believed a point he proceeded, as that no earthly 
 thing bred such wonder to a prince, as to be a good 
 horseman ; skill of government was but a " pedan- 
 teria " in comparison. Then would he add certain 
 praises by telling what a peerless beast the horse 
 was, the only serviceable courtier, without flattery, 
 the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, 
 and such more, that if I had not been a piece of a 
 logician before I came to him, I think he would 
 have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse. 
 But thus much, at least, with his no few words, he 
 drove into me, that self love is better than any 
 gilding, to make that seem gorgeous wherein our- 
 selves be parties. 
 
 Wherein, if Pugliano's strong affection and 
 weak arguments will not satisfy you, I will give 
 you a nearer example of myself, who, I know not 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 15 
 
 by what mischance, in these my not old years and 
 idlest times, having slipped into the title of a poet, 
 am provoked to say something unto you in the 
 defence of that my unelected vocation ; which if I 
 handle with more good will than good reasons, bear 
 with me, gince the scholar is to be pardoned that 
 followeth the steps of his master. 
 
 And yet I must say, that as I have more just 
 cause to make a pitiful defence of poor poetry, 
 which, from almost the highest estimation of learn- 
 ing, is fallen to be the laughing-stock of children ; 
 so have I need to bring some more available proofs, 
 since the former is by no man barred of his de- 
 served credit, whereas the silly latter hath had 
 even the names of philosophers used to the defacing 
 of it, with great danger of civil war among the 
 Muses.^ 
 
 At first, truly, to all them that, professing learn- 
 ing, inveigh against poetry, may justly be objected, 
 that they go very near to ungratefulness to seek 
 
 1 Here the introduction ends, and the argument begins with 
 its § 1. Poetry the first Light-giver, 
 
16 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 to deface that which, in the noblest nations and 
 languages that are known, hath been the first light- 
 giver to ignorance, and first nurse, whose milk by 
 little and little enabled them to feed afterwards of 
 tougher knowledges. And will you play the hedge- 
 hog, that being received into the den, drove out his 
 host ? ^ or rather the vipers, that with their birth 
 kill their parents'?^ 
 
 Let learned Greece, in any of her manifold 
 sciences, be able to show me one book before 
 Musseus, Homer, and Hesiod, all three nothing 
 else but poets. Nay, let any history be brought 
 that can say any writers were there before them, 
 if they were not men of the same skill, as Orpheus, 
 Linus, and some others are named, who having 
 been the first of that country that made pens de- 
 
 1 A fable from the "Hetamythium" of Laurentius Ab- 
 stemius, Professor of Belles Lettres at Urbino, and Librarian 
 to Duke Guido Ubaldo under the Pontificate of Alexander VI. 
 (1492-1503). 
 
 2 Pliny sa\s ("Nat. Hist.," lib. xi., cap. 62) that the young 
 vipers, impat lent to be born, break through the side of their 
 mother, and so kill her. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 17 
 
 liverers of their knowledge to posterity, may justly 
 challenge to be called their fathers in learning. 
 For not only in time they had this priority 
 (although in itself antiquity be venerable) but went 
 before them as causes to draw with their charming 
 sweetness the wild untamed wits to an admiration 
 of knowledge. So as Amphion was said to move 
 stones with his poetry to build Thebes, and Or- 
 pheus to be listened to by beasts, indeed, stony and 
 beastly people, so among the Romans were Livius 
 Andronicus, and Ennius ; so in the Italian lan- 
 guage, the first that made it to aspire to be a 
 treasure-house of science, were the poets Dante, 
 Boccace, and Petrarch ; so in our English were 
 Gower and Chaucer ; after whom, encouraged and 
 delighted with their excellent foregoing, others 
 have followed to beautify our mother tongue, as 
 well in the same kind as other arts. 
 
 ^ This did so notably show itself that thiELphi^ 
 losophers of Greece durst not a long time appear 
 to the world but under the mask of poets ; so 
 
 I § 2. Borrowed froui by Philosophers* 
 19— B 
 
18 A DEFENCE OF POESIB. 
 
 Thales, Empedocles, and Parmenides sang their 
 natural philosophy in verses ; so did Pythagoras 
 and Phocylides their moral counsels ; so did Tyrtseus 
 in war matters; and Solon in matters of policy; 
 or rather they, being poets, did exercise their de- 
 lightful vein in those points of highest knowledge, 
 which before them lay hidden to the world ; for 
 that wise Solon was directly a poet it is manifest, 
 having written in verse the notable fable of the 
 Atlantic Island, which was continued by Plato. ^ 
 And, truly, even Plato, whosoever well considereth 
 shall find that in the body of his work, though the 
 
 1 Timaeus, the P3rthagorean philosopher of Locri, and the 
 Athenian Critias are represented by Plato as having listened to 
 the discourse of Socrates on a Republic. Socrates calls on 
 them to show such a state in action. Critias will tell of the 
 rescue of Europe by the ancient citizens of Attica, 10,000 
 years before, from an inroad of countless invaders who came 
 from the vast island of Atlantis, in the Western Ocean; a 
 struggle of which record was "preserved in the temple of Naith 
 or Athen^ at Sais, in Egypt, and handed down, through Solon, 
 by family tradition to Critias. But first Timaeus agrees to 
 expound the structure of the universe ; then Critias, in a piece 
 left unfinished by Plato, proceeds to show an ideal society in 
 action against pressure of a danger that seems irresistible. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 19 
 
 inside and strength were philosophy, the skin, as it 
 were, and beauty depended most of poetry. Foi 
 all stands upon dialogues ; wherein he feigns man;y 
 honest burgesses of Athens speaking of such 
 matters that if they had been set on the rack they 
 would never have confessed them ; besides, his 
 poetical describing the circumstances of their meet- 
 ings, as the well-ordering of a banquet, the delicacy 
 of a walk, with interlacing mere tales, as Gyges's 
 Ring/ and others ; which, who knows not to be 
 flowers of poetry, did never walk into Apollo's 
 garden. / 
 
 ^ And even historiographers, although their lips 
 sound of things done, and verity be written in 
 their foreheads, have been glad to borrow both 
 fashion and, perchance, weight of the poets ; so 
 Herodotus entitled the books of his history by the 
 names of the Nine Muses ; and both he, and all 
 the rest that followed him, either stole or usurped^ 
 of poetry, their passionate describing of passions. 
 
 ^ Plato's " Republic," book ii. 
 
 * § 3. Borrowed from hy Historians. 
 
20 A DEFENCE OF POESIB. 
 
 the many particularities of battles which no man 
 could affirm ; or, if that be denied me, long ora- 
 tions, put in the mouths of great kings and 
 captains, which it is certain they never pronounced. 
 So that, truly, neither philosopher nor historio- 
 grapher could, at the first, have entered into the 
 gates of popular judgments, if they had not taken 
 a great disport of poetry ; which in all nations, at 
 this day, where learning flourisheth not, is plain to 
 be seen ; in all which they have some feeling of 
 poetry. In Turkey, besides their lawgiving divines 
 they have no other writers but poets. In our 
 neighbour-country Ireland, where, too, learning 
 goes very bare, yet are their poets held in a devout 
 reverence. Even among the most barbarous and 
 simple Indians, where no writing is, yet have they 
 their poets who make and sing songs, which they 
 call " Arentos," both of their ancestor's deeds and 
 praises of their gods. ( A sufficient probability, 
 that if ever learning comes among them, it must be 
 by having their hard dull wits softened and 
 sharpened with the sweet delight of poetry; for 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 21 
 
 until they find a pleasure in the exercise of the 
 mind, great promises of much knowledge will little 
 persuade them that know not the fruits of know- 
 ledge. In Wales, the true remnant of the ancieni 
 Britons, as there are good authorities to show the 
 long time they had poets, which they called bards, 
 so through all the conquests of Romans, Saxons, 
 Danes, and Normans, some of whom did seek to 
 ruin all memory of learning from among them, yet 
 do their poets, even to this day, last ; so as it is not 
 more notable in the soon beginning than in long- 
 continuing. 
 
 But since the authors of most ot our sciences 
 were the Romans, and before them the Greeks, 
 let us, a little, stand upon their authorities ; but 
 even so far, as to see what names they have given 
 unto this now scorned skill.^ Among the Romans 
 a poet was called " vates," which is as much as a 
 diviner, foreseer, or prophet, as by his conjoined 
 words " vaticinium," and " vaticinari," is manifest ; 
 so heavenly a title-did that excellent people bestow 
 
 1 § 4. Honoured by the Romans as Sacred and Prophetic 
 
22 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 upon this heart-ravishing knowledge ! And so far 
 were they carried into the admiration thereof, that 
 they thought in the changeable hitting upon any 
 such verses, great foretokens of their following 
 fortunes were placed. Whereupon grew the word 
 of sortes Virgilianse ; when, by sudden opening 
 Virgil's book, they lighted upon some verse, as it is 
 reported by many, whereof the histories of the 
 Emperors' lives are full. As of Albinus, the 
 governor of our island, who, in his childhood, met 
 with this verse — 
 
 Arma amens capio, nee sat rationis in armia ; 
 
 and in his age performed it. Although it were a 
 very vain and godless superstition ; as also it was, 
 to think spirits were commanded by such verses ; 
 whereupon this word charms, derived of '^ carmina," 
 Cometh, so yet serveth it to show the great rever- 
 ence those wits were held in ; and altogether not 
 without ground, since both the oracles of Delphi 
 and the Sibyl's prophecies were wholly delivered 
 in verses ; for that same exquisite observing of 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 23 
 
 number and measure in the words, and that high- 
 flying liberty of conceit proper to the poet, did 
 seem to have some divine force in it. 
 
 ^ And may not I presume a little farther to show 
 the reasonableness of this word " vates," and say, 
 that the holy David's Psalms are a divine poem 1 
 If I do, I shall not do it without the testimony of 
 great learned men, both ancient and modem. But 
 even the name of Psalms will speak for me, which, 
 being interpreted, is nothing but Songs ; then, that 
 is fully written in metre, as all learned Hebricians 
 agree, although the rules be not yet fully found. 
 Lastly, and principally, his handling his prophecy, 
 which is merely poetical. For what else is the 
 awaking his musical instruments ; the often and 
 free changing of persons ; his notable prosopopoeias, 
 when he maketh you, as it were, see God coming 
 in His majesty; his telling of the beasts* joy ful- 
 ness, and hills leaping ; but a heavenly poesy, 
 wherein, almost, he sheweth himself a passionate 
 
 1 § 5. And really sacred and. prophetic in the Psalms of 
 David. 
 
24 A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 
 
 lover of that unspeakable and everlasting beauty, 
 to be seen by the eyes of the mind, only cleared 
 by faith? But truly, now, having named him, I 
 fear I seem to profane that holy name, applying it 
 to poetry, which is, among us, thrown down to so 
 ridiculous an estimation. But they that, with quiet 
 judgments, will look a little deeper into it, shall 
 find the end and working of it such, as, being 
 rightly applied, deserveth not to be scourged out 
 of the church of God. 
 
 ^ But now let us see how the Greeks have named 
 it, and how they deemed of it. The Greeks named 
 him TToirjTrjv, which name hath, as the most excel- 
 lent, gone through other languages; it cometh of 
 this word iroieiy, which is to make; wherein, I 
 know not whether by luck or wisdom, we English- 
 men have met with the Greeks in calling him " a 
 maker," which name, how high and incomparable a 
 title it is, I had rather were known by marking 
 the scope of other sciences, than by any partial 
 
 1 § 6. J5y the Greeks^ Poets were honoured with the name oj 
 Makers, 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIB 26 
 
 allegation. There is no art delivered unto man- 
 kind that hath not the works of nature for his 
 principal object, without which they could not 
 consist, and on which they so depend as they 
 become actors and players, as it were, of what 
 nature will have set forth. ^ So doth the astronomer 
 look upon the stars, and by that he seeth set down 
 what order nature hath taken therein. So doth 
 the geometrician and arithmetician, in their diverse 
 sorts of quantities. So doth the musician, in 
 times, tell you which by nature agree, which not. 
 The natural philosopher thereon hath his name; 
 and the moral philosopher standeth upon the 
 natural virtues, vices, or passions of man ; and 
 follow nature, saith he, therein, and thou shalt not 
 err. The lawyer saith what men have determined. 
 The historian, what men have done. The gram- 
 marian speaketh only of the rules of speech ; and 
 the rhetorician and logician, considering what in 
 nature will soonest prove and persuade, thereon 
 
 1 Poetry is the one creative art. Astronomers and others 
 repeat what they find. 
 
26 A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 
 
 give artificial rules, which still are compassed 
 within the circle of a question, according to the 
 proposed matter. The physician weigheth the 
 nature of man's body, and the nature of things 
 helpful and hurtful unto it. And the metaphysic, 
 though it be in the second and abstract notions, 
 and therefore be counted supernatural, yet doth he, 
 indeed, build upon the depth of nature. Only the 
 poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, 
 lifted up with the vigour of his own invention, 
 doth grow, in effect, into another nature ; in making 
 things either better than nature bringeth forth, or 
 quite anew ; forms such as never were in nature, 
 as the heroes, demi-gods, Cyclops, chimeras, furies, 
 and such like ; so as he goeth hand in hand with 
 Nature, not enclosed within the narrow warrant 
 of her gifts, but freely ranging within the zodiac 
 of his own wit.^ Nature never set forth the 
 earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have 
 done ] neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful 
 trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else 
 1 Poets improve Nature* 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 27 
 
 may make the too-much-loved earth more lovely ; 
 her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a 
 golden. 
 
 But let those things alone, and go to man ; ^ for 
 whom as the other things are, so it seemeth in him 
 her uttermost cunning is employed ; and know, 
 whether she have brought forth so true a lover as 
 Theagenes ; so constant a friend as Pylades ; so 
 valiant a man as Orlando ; so right a prince as 
 Xenophon's Cyras ; and so excellent a man every 
 way as YirgiFs ^neas 1 Neither let this be jest- 
 ingly conceived, because the works of the one be 
 essential, the other in imitation or fiction ; for 
 every understanding knoweth the skill of each 
 artificer standeth in that idea, or fore-conceit of 
 the work, and not in the work itself. And that 
 the poet hath that idea is manifest by delivering 
 them forth in such excellency as he had imagined 
 them ; which delivering forth, also, is not wholly 
 imaginative, as we are wont to say by them that 
 build castles in the air ; but so far substantially it 
 1 And idealize man. 
 
28 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 worketh not only to make a Cyrns, which, had been 
 but a particular excellency, as nature might have 
 done ; but to bestow a Cyrus upon the world to 
 make many Cyruses ; if they will learn aright, why, 
 and how, that maker made him. Neither let it be 
 deemed too saucy a comparison to balance the 
 highest point of man's wit with the efficacy of 
 nature ; but rather give right honour to the 
 heavenly Maker of that maker, who having made 
 man to His own likeness, set him beyond and over all 
 the works of that second nature ; which in nothing 
 he showeth so much as in poetry ; when, with the 
 force of a divine breath, he bringeth things forth 
 surpassing her doings, with no small arguments to 
 the incredulous of that first accursed fall of Adam ; 
 since our erected wit maketh us know what per- 
 fection is, and yet our infected will keepeth us 
 from reaching unto it. But these arguments will 
 by few be understood, and by fewer granted ; thus 
 much I hope will be given me, that the Greeks, 
 with some probability of reason, gave him the 
 name above all names of learning. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 29 
 
 ^Now let us go to a more ordinary opening of 
 him, that the truth may be the more palpable ; and 
 so, I hope, though we get not so unmatched a 
 praise as the etymology of his names will grant, 
 yet his very description, which no man will deny, 
 shall not justly be barred from a principal com- 
 mendation. 
 
 ^ Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation ; for so 
 Aristotle termeth it in the word fxifirjarLg ; that is 
 to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring 
 forth : to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture, 
 with this end, t o tea ch and delight. ^ 
 
 3 Of this have been three general kinds : the 
 chiefs both in antiquity and excellency, where they 
 that did imitate the inconceivable excellencies of 
 God ; such were David in the Psalms ; Solomon in 
 the Song of Songs, in his Ecolesiastes, and Proverbs ; 
 Moses and Deborah in their hymns ; and the writer 
 of Job ; which, beside others, the learned Emanuel 
 
 1 Here a Second Part of the Essay begins, 
 
 2 § 1. Poetry defined. 
 
 3 § 2. Its kinds, a. Divine, 
 
30 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 Tremellius and Fr. Junius do entitle the poetical 
 part of the scripture ; against these none will speak 
 that hath the Holy Ghost in due holy reverence. 
 In this kind, though in a wrong divinity, were 
 Orpheus, Amphion, Homer in his hymns, ^ and 
 many others, both Greeks and Romans. And this 
 poesy must be used by whosoever will follow 
 St. Paul's counsel, in singing psalms when they are 
 merry ; and I know is used with the fruit of 
 comfort by some, when, in sorrowful pangs of their 
 death-bringing sins, they find the consolation of the 
 never-leaving goodness, 
 
 ^The second kind is of them that deal wit! 
 matter philosophical ; either moral, as Tyrtseus, 
 Phocylides, Cato ; or, natural, as Lucretius, Virgil's 
 Georgics ; or astronomical, as Manilius ^ and Pon- 
 tanus ; or historical, as Lucan ; which who mislike, 
 the fault is in their judgment, quite out of taste, and 
 not in the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge. 
 
 1 6. Philosophical J which is perhaps too imitative. 
 
 2 Marcus Manilius wrote under Tiberius a metrical treatise 
 on Astronomy, of which five books on the fixed stars remain. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 31 
 
 But because this second sort is wrapped within 
 the fold of the proposed subject, and takes not the 
 free course of his own invention ; whether they 
 properly be poets or no, let grammarians dispute, 
 and go to the thirds indeed right poets, of whom 
 chiefly this question ariseth; betwixt whom and 
 these sec6nd is such a kind of difference, as betwixt 
 the meaner sort of painters, who counterfeit only 
 such faces as are set before them ; and the more 
 excellent, who having no law but wit, bestow that Sy 
 in colours upon you which is fittest for the eye to 
 see ; as the constant, though lamenting look of 
 Lucretia, when she punished in herself another's 
 fault ; wherein he painteth not Lucretia, whom he 
 never saw, but painteth the outward beauty of 
 such a virtue. For these three be they which most 
 properly do imitate to teach and delight \ and to 
 imitate, borrow nothing of what is, hath been, or 
 shall be ; but range only, reined with learned dis- 
 cretion, into the divine consideration of what may 
 be, and should be. These be they, that, as the 
 
 1 c. Poetry proper. 
 
32 A DEFENCE OF POESIE 
 
 first and most noble sort, may justly be termed 
 " vates ; " so these are waited on in the excellentest 
 languages and best understandings, with the fore 
 described name of poets. For these, indeed, do 
 merely make to imitate, and imitate both to delight 
 and teach, and delight to move men to take that 
 goodness in hand, which, without delight they 
 would fly as from a stranger ; and teach to make 
 them know that goodness whereunto they are 
 moved ; which being the noblest scope to which 
 ever any learning was directed, yet want there not 
 idle tongues to bark at them. J 
 
 1 These be subdivided into sundry more special 
 denominations; the most notable be the heroic, 
 lyric, tragic, comic, satyric, iambic, elegiac, pastoral, 
 and cer^in others; some of these being termed 
 according to the matter they deal with ; some by 
 the sort of verse they like best to write in ; for, 
 indeed, the greatest part of poets have apparelled 
 their poetical inventions in that numerous kind of 
 writing which is called verse. Indeed, but appa- 
 1 § 3. Subdivisions of Poetry proper. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 33 
 
 relied verse, being but an ornament, and no cause 
 to poetry, since there have been many most excel- 
 lent poets that never versified, and now swarm 
 many versifiers^that need never answer to the 
 name of poets. ^ For Xenophon, who did imitate 
 so excellently as to give us effigiem justi imperii, 
 the portraiture of a just empire, under the name 
 of Cyrus, as Cicero saith of him, made therein an 
 absolute heroical poem. So did Heliodorus, ^ in 
 his sugared invention of that picture of love in 
 Theagenes and Chariclea ; and yet both these wrote 
 in prose ; which I speak to show, that it is not 
 rhyming and versing that maketh a poet (no more 
 than a long gown maketh an advocate, who, though, 
 he pleaded in armour should be an advocate and 
 no soldier) ; but it is that feigning notable images 
 of virtues, vices, or what else, with that delightful 
 teaching, which must be the right describing note 
 
 ^ Its essence is in the thought, not in apparelling of verse. 
 
 2 ffeliodoruswsis Bishop of Tricca, in Thessaly, and lived in the 
 fourth century. His story of Theagenes and Chariclea, called 
 the " ^thiopica," was a romantic tale in Greek which was, in 
 Elizabeth's reign, translated into English. 
 
 19— c 
 
34 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 to know a poet by. Although, indeed, the senate 
 of poets have chosen verse as their fittest rai- 
 ment ; meaning, as in matter they passed all in 
 all, so in manner to go beyond them; not 
 .' speaking table-talk fashion, or like men in a 
 I dream, words as they chanceably fall from the 
 I mouth, but piecing each syllable of each word 
 .by just proportion, according to the dignity oi 
 the subject. 
 
 ^ Now, therefore, it shall not be amiss, first, to 
 weight this latter sort of poetry by his works^ and 
 then by his parts ; and if in neither of these anata 
 mies he be commendable, I hope we shall receivq a 
 more favourable sentence. This purifying of wit, 
 this enriching of memory, enabling of judgment, 
 and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call 
 learning, under what name soever it come forth, or 
 to what immediate end soever it be directed ; the 
 final end is, to lead and^draw us to as high a per- 
 fection as our degenerate souls, made worse by 
 
 1 The Poet's Work and Parts, § 1. WoiiK : What Poetry does 
 for us. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 35 
 
 their clay lodgings, i can be capable of. This, 
 according to the inclination of man, bred many 
 formed impressions ; for some that thought this 
 felicity principally to be gotten by knowledge, and 
 no knowledge to be so high or heavenly as to 
 be acquainted with the stars, gave themselves to 
 astronomy ; others, persuading themselves to be 
 demi-gods, if they knew the causes of things, became 
 natural and supernatural philosophers. Some an 
 admirable delight drew to music, and some the 
 certainty of demonstrations to the mathematics ; 
 but all, one and other, having this scope to know, 
 and by knowledge to lift up the mind from the 
 dungeon of the body to the enjoying his own divine 
 essence. But when, by the balance of experience, 
 it was found that the astronomer, looking to the 
 stars, might fall in a ditch ; that the enquiring 
 philosopher might be blind in himself; and the 
 
 1 Their clay lodyinqs — 
 
 *' Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
 But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
 Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. *' 
 
 (Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice," act v., so. 1.) 
 
36 A DEFENC13 OP POESlE. 
 
 mathematician might draw forth a straight line 
 with a crooked heart ; then lo ! did proof, the over- 
 ruler of opinions, make manifest that all these are 
 but serving sciences, which, as they have a private 
 end in themselves, so yet are they all directed to 
 the highest end of the mistress knowledge, by the 
 Greeks called apx'^TEKToviKri^ which stands, as I think, 
 in the knowledge of a man's self; in the ethic and 
 politic consideration, with the end of well doing, 
 and not of well knowing only ; even as the saddler's 
 next end is to make a good saddle, but his farther 
 end to serve a nobler faculty, which is horseman- 
 ship ; so the horseman's to soldiery ; and the soldier 
 not only to have the skill, but to perform the 
 practice of a soldier. So that the ending end of 
 all earthly learning being virtuous action, those 
 skills that most serve to bring forth that have a 
 most just title to be princes over all the rest; 
 wherein, if we can show it rightly, the poet is 
 worthy to have it before any other competitors.^ 
 
 1 Poetry best advances the end of all earthly learning ^ virtuous 
 action, "** 
 
 n 
 
 .y 
 
A PEFENCE OF POESIE. 37 
 
 1 Among whom principally to challenge it, step 
 forth the moral philosophers ; whom, methinks, I 
 see coming toward me with a sullen gravity (as 
 though they could not abide vice by daylight), 
 rudely clothed, for to witness outwardly their 
 contempt of outward things, with books in their 
 hands against glory, whereto they set their names ; 
 sophistically speaking against subtlety, and angry 
 with any man in whom they see the foul fault of anger. 
 These men, casting largesses as they go, of defini- 
 tions, divisions, and distinctions, with a scornful 
 interrogative do soberly ask : Whether it be possible 
 to find any path so ready to lead a man to virtue, 
 as that which teacheth what virtue is ; and teacheth 
 it not only by delivering forth his very being, his 
 causes and effects ; but also by making, known his 
 enemy, vice, which must be destroyed ; and his 
 cumbersome servant, passion, which must be mas- 
 tered, by showing the generalities that contain it, 
 and the specialities that are derived from it ; 
 lastly, by plain setting down how it extends itself 
 1 Its advantage herein over Moral Philosophy, 
 
38 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 out of the limits of a man's own little world, to the 
 government of families, and maintaininp; of public 
 societies 1 
 
 The historian^ scarcely gives leisure to the 
 moralist to say so much, but that he (laden with 
 old mouse-eaten records, authorizing 2 himself, for 
 the most part, upon other histories, whose greatest 
 authorities are built upon the notable foundation 
 of hearsay, having much ado to accord differing 
 writers, and to pick truth out of partiality ; better 
 acquainted with a thousand years ago than with 
 the present age, and yet better knowing how this 
 world goes than how his own wit runs ; curious for 
 antiquities, and inquisitive of novelties, a wonder 
 to young folks, and a tyrant in table-talk) denieth, 
 in a great chafe, that any man for teaching of 
 virtue and virtuous actions, is comparable to him. 
 T am " Testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memorise, 
 
 1 Its advantage herein over History. 
 8 " All men make faults, and even I in this, 
 Authorising thy trespass with compare." 
 
 Shakespeare, " Sonnet '* 35. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 39 
 
 magistra vitse, nuncia vetustatis." ^ The philoso- 
 pher, saith he, teach eth a disputative virtue, but I 
 do an active ; his virtue is excellent in the danger- 
 less academy of Plato, but mine showeth forth her 
 honourable face in the battles of Marathon, Phar- 
 salia, Poictiers, and Agincourt : he teacheth virtue 
 by certain abstract considerations ; but I only bid 
 you follow the footing of them that have gone before 
 you : old-aged experience goeth beyond the fine- 
 witted philosopher; but I give the experience of 
 many ages. Lastly, if he make the song book, I 
 put the learner's hand to the lute ; and if he be 
 the guide, I am the light. Then would he allege 
 you innumerable examples, confirming story by 
 stories, how much the wisest senators and princes 
 have been directed by the credit of history, as 
 Brutus, Alphonsus of Aragon (and who not? if 
 need be). At length, the long line of their dispu- 
 tation makes a point in this, that the one giveth ^ 
 the precept, and the other the example. 
 
 1 " Witness of the times, light of truth, life of memory, mis- 
 tress of life, messenger of antiquity." — Cicero, "De Oratore." 
 
40 A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 
 
 1 Now whom shall we find, since the question 
 standeth for the highest form in the school of 
 learning, to be moderator ? Truly, as me seemeth, 
 the poet ; and if not a moderator, even the man 
 that ought to carry the title from them both, and 
 much more from all other serving sciences. There- 
 fore compare we the poet with the historian, and 
 with the moral philosopher ; and if he go beyond 
 them both, no other human skill can match him ; 
 for as for the Divine, with all reverence^ he is ever 
 to be excepted, not only for having his scope as 
 far beyond any of these, as eternity exceedeth a 
 moment, but even for passing each of these in 
 themselves ; and for the lawyer, though " Jus " be 
 the daughter of Justice, the chief of virtues, 
 yet because he seeks to make men good rather 
 "formidine poenae" than "virtutis amore," or, to 
 say righter, doth not endeavour to make men good, 
 but that their evil hurt not others, having no care, 
 so he be a good citizen, how bad a man he be : 
 
 1 In what manner the Poet goes beyond Philosopher, Historian 
 amd all other's (bating comparison with the Divine). 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 41 
 
 therefore, as our wickedness maketh him necessary, 
 and necessity maketh him honourable, so is he not 
 in the deepest truth to stand in rank with these, 
 who all endeavour to take naughtiness away, and 
 plant goodness even in the secretest cabinet of our 
 souls. And these four are all that any way deal 
 in the consideration of men's manners, which being 
 the supreme knowledge, they that best breed it 
 deserve the best commendation. 
 
 The philosopher, therefore, and the historian are 
 they which would win the goal, the one by precept, 
 the other by example; but both, not having 
 both, do both halt. For the philosopher, setting 
 down with thorny arguments the bare rule, is so 
 hard of utterance, and so misty to be conceived, 
 that one that hath no other guide but him shall 
 wade in him until he be old, before he shall find 
 sufficient cause to be honest. For his knowledge 
 standeth so upon the abstract and general, that 
 happy is that man who may understand him, and 
 more happy that can apply what he doth under 
 stand. On the other side the historian, wanting 
 
42 A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 
 
 the precept, is so tied, not to what should be, but 
 to what is : to the particular truth of things, and 
 not to the general reason of things; that his 
 example draweth no necessary coilsequence, and 
 therefore a less fruitful doctrine. / 
 
 1 Now doth the peerless poe</perform both ; for 
 whatsoever the philosopher saith should be done, 
 he giveth a perfect picture of it, by some one by 
 whom he pre-supposeth it was done, so as he coupleth 
 the general notion with the particular example 
 A perfect picture, I say ; for he )deldeth to the 
 powers of the mind an image of that whereof the 
 philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description, 
 which doth neither strike, pierce, nor possess the 
 sight of the soul, so much as that other doth. For 
 as, in outward things, to a man that had never seen 
 an elephant, or a rhinoceros, who should tell him 
 most exquisitely all their shape, colour, bigness, 
 and particular marks *? or of a gorgeous palace, an 
 architect, who, declaring the full beauties, might 
 well make the hearer able to repeat, as it were, by 
 1 He is beyond the Philosopher, 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESTB. 43 
 
 rote, all he had lieard, yet should never satisfy his 
 inward conceit, with being witness to itself of a 
 true living knowledge ; but the same man, as soon 
 as he might see those beasts well painted, or that 
 house well in model, should straightway grow, 
 without need of any description, to a judicial com- 
 prehending of them; so, no doubt, the philoso- 
 pher, with his learned definitions, be it of virtue 
 or vices, matters of public policy or private govern- 
 ment, replenisheth the memory wdth many infallible 
 grounds of wisdom, which, notwithstanding, lie 
 dark before the imaginative and judging power, if 
 they be not illuminated or figured forth by the 
 speaking picture of poesy. 
 
 TuUy taketh much pains, and many times not 
 without poetical help, to make us know the force 
 love of our country hath in us. Let us but hear 
 old Anchises, speaking in the midst of Troy's 
 flames, or see Ulysses, in the fulness of all Calypso's 
 delights, bewail his absence from barren and 
 beggarly Ithaca. Anger, the Stoics said, was a 
 short madness ; let but Sophocles bring you Ajax 
 
44 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 on a stage, killing or whipping sheep and oxen 
 thinking them the army of Greeks, with their 
 3hief tains Agamemnon and Menelaus ; and tell me, 
 if you have not a more familiar insight into anger, 
 than finding in the schoolmen his genus and differ- 
 ence 1 See whether wisdom and temperance in 
 Ulysses and Diomedes, valour in Achilles, friend- 
 ship in Nisus and Euryalus, even to an ignorant 
 man, carry not an apparent shining ; and, contrarily, 
 the remorse of conscience in (Edipus ; the soon- 
 repenting pride in Agamemnon ; the self-devouring 
 cruelty in his father Atreus ; the violence of ambi- 
 tion in the two Theban brothers ; the sour sweet- 
 ness of revenge in Medea ; and, to fall lower, the 
 Terentian Gnatho, and our Chaucer's Pandar, so 
 expressed, that we now use their names to signify 
 their trades ; and finally, all virtues, vices, and 
 passions so in their own natural states laid to the 
 view, that we seem not to hear of them, but clearly 
 to see through them ] 
 
 But even in the most excellent determination of 
 eroodness, what philosopher's counsel can so readily 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 45 
 
 direct a prince as the feigned Cyrus in Xenophon 1 
 Or a virtuous man in all fortunes, as JEneas in 
 Virgil ^ Or a whole commonwealth, as the way of 
 Sir Thomas More's Utopia 1 I say the way, because 
 where Sir Thomas More erred, it was the fault of 
 the man, and not of the poet ; for that way of 
 patterning a commonwealth was most absolute, 
 though he, perchance, hath not so absolutely per- 
 formed it. For the question is, whether the feigned 
 image of poetry, or the regular instruction of philo- 
 sophy, hath the more force in teaching. Wherein, 
 if the philosophers have more rightly showed them- 
 selves philosophers, than the poets have attained to 
 the high top of their profession, (^as in truth, 
 
 " Mediocribus esse j^oetis 
 Non Di, non homines, non concessere coliimnEe,'*^) 
 
 it is, I say again, not the fault of the art, but that 
 by few men that art can be accomplished. Cer- 
 tainly, even our Saviour Christ could as well have 
 
 1 Horace's *' Ars Poetica," lines 372 — 3. But Horace wrote 
 *'Non homines, nonDi" — "Neither men, gois, nor lettered 
 columns have admitted mediocrity in poets." 
 
46 A DEFP^NCE OP POESIE. 
 
 given the moral common- places ' of nn charitable- 
 ness and humbleness, as the divine narration of 
 Dives and Lazarus ; or of disobedience and mercy, 
 as the heavenly discourse of the lost child and the 
 gracious father ; but that his thorough searching 
 wisdom knew the estate of Dives burning in hell, 
 and of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, would more con- 
 stantly, as it were, inhabit both the memory and 
 judgment. Truly, for myself (me seems), I see 
 before mine eyes the lost child's disdainful pro- ' 
 
 1 The moral common-places. Common Place, ' * Locus commu- 
 nis," was a term used in old rhetoric to represent testimonies 
 or pithy sentences of good authors which might be used for 
 strengthening or adorning a discourse ; but said Keckermann, 
 whose Rhetoric was a text-book in the days of James I. and 
 Charles I., "Because it is impossible thus to read through all 
 authors, there are books that give students of eloquence what 
 they need in the succinct form of books of Common Places, like 
 that collected by Stobasus out of Cicero, Seneca, Terence, 
 Aristotle ; but especially the book entitled ' Polyanthea,' pro- 
 vides short and effective sentences apt to any matter. " Fre- 
 quent resort to the Polyanthea caused many a good quotation 
 to be hackneyed ; the term of rhetoric, " a common-place," 
 came then to mean a good saying made familiar by incessant 
 quoting, and then in common speech, any trite saying good or 
 bad, but commonly without wit in it. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 47 
 
 digality turned to envy a swine's dinner ; which, 
 by the learned divines, are thought not historical 
 acts, but instructing parables. 
 
 For conclusion, I say the philosopher teacheth, 
 but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only 
 can understand him ; that is to say, he teacheth 
 them that are already taught. But the poet is the 
 food for the tenderest stomachs ; the poet is, indeed, 
 the right popular philosopher. Whereof ^sop's 
 tales give good proof ; whose pretty allegories, 
 stealing under the formal tales of beasts, make 
 many, more beastly than beasts, begin to hear the 
 sound of virtue from those dumb speakers. 
 
 But now may it be alleged, that if this managing\ 
 of matters be so fit for the imagination, then must 
 the historian needs surpass, who brings you images 
 of true matters, such as, indeed, were done, and 
 not such as fantastically or falsely may be suggested 
 to have been done. Truly, Ai-istotle himself, in 
 his Discourse of Poesy, plainly determineth this 
 question, saying, that poetry is (l>i>oco(j)WTepoy kcu 
 TTtTov^awreooy, that is to say, it is more philosophical 
 
48 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 and more ingenious than history. His reason is, 
 because poesy dealeth with KadoXoVj that is to say, 
 with the universal consideration, and the history 
 Kad eKa(TTov, the particular. " Now," saith he, 
 "the universal weighs what is fit to be said or 
 done, either in likelihood or necessity ; which the 
 [)oesy considereth in his imposed names ; and the 
 particular only marks, whether Alcibiades did, or 
 suffered, this or that : " thus far Aristotle.^ Which 
 reason of his, as all his, is most full of reason. 
 For, indeed, if the question were, whether it were 
 
 1 Thus far Aristotle. The whole passage in the "Poetics" 
 runs : "It is not by writing in verse or prose that the Historian 
 and Poet are distinguished. The work of Herodotus might be 
 versified; but it would still be a species of History, no less 
 with metre than without. They are distinguished by this, that 
 the one relates what has been, the other what might be. On 
 this account Poetiy is more i)hilosophical, and a more excellent 
 thing than History, for Poetry is chiefly conversant about 
 general truth ; History about particular. In what manner, 
 for example, any person of a certain character would speak or 
 act, probably or necessarily, this is general ; and this is the 
 object of Poetry, even while it makes use of particular names. 
 But what Alcibiades did, or what happened to him, this is 
 Darticular truth." 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 49 
 
 better to have a particular act truly or falsely set 
 down 1 there is no doubt which is to be chosen, nc 
 more than whether you had rather have Vespasian's 
 picture right as he was, or, at the painter's pleasure, 
 nothing resembling] But if the question be, foi 
 your own use and learning, whether it be better to 
 have it set down as it should be, or as it was ? 
 then, certainly, is more doctrinable the feigned 
 Cyrus in Xenophon, than the true Cyrus in Justin ; ^ 
 and the feigned ^neas in Virgil, than the right 
 uEneas in Dares Phrygius;^ as to a lady that 
 desired to fashion her countenance to the best grace, 
 a painter should more benefit her, to portrait a 
 most sweet face, writing Canidia upon it, than to 
 paint Canidia as she was, who, Horace sweareth, 
 was full ill-favoured. If the poet do his part 
 
 1 Justinus, who lived in the second century, made an epitome 
 of the history of the Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, Macedonian, 
 and Roman Empires, from Trogus Pompeius, who lived in the 
 time of Augustus. 
 
 2 Dares Phrygius was supposed to have been a priest of 
 Vulcan, who was in Troy during the siege, and the Phrygian 
 [liad ascribed to him as early as the time of iElian, A.D. 230. 
 was supposed, therefore, to be older than Homer's. 
 
 19-D 
 
60 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 aright, ne will show you in Tantalus, Atreus, and 
 such like, nothing that is not to be shunned ; in 
 Cyrus, ^neas, Ulysses, each thing to be followed ; 
 where the historian, bound to tell things as things 
 were, cannot be liberal, without he will be poetical, 
 of a perfect pattern; but, as in Alexander, or 
 Scipio himself, show doings, some to be liked, some 
 to be misliked ; and then how will you discern 
 what to follow, but by your own discretion, which 
 you had, without reading Q. Ourtius ? ^ And 
 whereas, a man may say, though in universal con- 
 sideration of doctrine, the poet prevaileth, yet that 
 the history, in his saying such a thing was done, 
 doth warrant a man more in that he shall follow ; 
 the answer is manifest : that if he stand upon that 
 was, as if he should argue, because it rained yester- 
 day therefore it should rain to-day ; then, indeed, 
 hath it some advantage to a gross conceit. But if 
 he know an example only enforms a conjectured 
 
 1 Quintus CurttuSf a Roman historian of uncertain date, who 
 wrote the history of Alexander the Great in ten books, of 
 which two are lost and others defective. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 51 
 
 likelihood, and so go by reason, the poet doth so 
 far exceed him, as he is to frame his example to 
 that which is most reasonable, be it in warlike, 
 politic, or private matters ; where the historian in 
 his bare was hath many times that which we call 
 fortune to overrule the best wisdom. Many times 
 he must tell events whereof he can yield no cause ; 
 or if he do, it must be poetically. 
 
 For, that a feigned example hath as much force 
 to teach as a true example (for as for to move, it is 
 clear, since the feigned may be tuned to the highest 
 key of passion), let us take one example wherein 
 an historian and a poet did concur. Herodotus 
 and Justin do both testify, that Zopyrus, King 
 Darius's faithful servant, seeing his master long 
 resisted by the rebellious Babylonians, feigned him- 
 self in extreme disgrace of his King ; for verifying 
 of which he caused his own nose and ears to be cut 
 off, and so flying to the Babylonians, was received ; 
 and, for his known valour, so far credited, that he did 
 find means to deliver them over to Darius. Much- 
 like matters doth Livy record of Tarquinius and 
 
62 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 his son. Xenophon excellently feigned such another 
 stratagem, performed by Abradatus in Cyrus's be- 
 half. Now would I fain know, if occasion be 
 presented unto you to serve your prince by such 
 an honest dissimulation, why do you not as well 
 learn it of Xenophon's fiction as of the other's 
 verity 1 and, truly, so much the better, as you shall 
 save your nose by the bargain ; for Abradatus did 
 not counterfeit so far. So, then, the best of the 
 historians is subject to the poet ; for, whatsoever 
 action or faction, whatsoever counsel, policy, or war 
 stratagem the historian is bound to recite, that may 
 the poet, if he list, with his imitation, make his 
 own, beautifying it both for farther teaching, and 
 more delighting, sis it please him : having all, from 
 Dante's heaven to his hell, under the authority of 
 his pen. Which if I be asked, What poets have done 
 so *? as I might well name some, so yet, say I, and 
 say again, I speak of the art, and not of the artificer. 
 Now, to that which commonly is attributed to 
 the praise of history, in respect of the notable 
 learning which is got by marking the success, as 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 53 
 
 though therein a man should see virtue exalted, 
 and vice punished : truly, that commendation is 
 peculiar to poetry, and far off from history ; for, 
 indeed, poetry ever sets virtue so out in her best 
 colours, making fortune her well- waiting handmaid, 
 that one must needs be enamoured of her. Well 
 may you see Ulysses in a storm, and in other hard 
 plights ; but they are but exercises of patience and 
 magnanimity, to make them shine the more in the 
 near following prosperity. And, on the contrary 
 part, if evil men come to the stage, they ever go 
 out (as the tragedy writer answered to one that 
 misliked the show of such persons) so manacled, as 
 they little animate folks to follow them. But 
 history being captive to the truth of a foolish world, 
 in many times a terror from well-doing, and an en- 
 couragement to unbridled wickedness. For see we 
 not valiant Miltiades rot in his fetters ] the just 
 Phocion and the accomplished Socrates put to death 
 like traitors ? the cruel Severus live prosperously 1 
 the excellent Severus miserably murdered 1 Sylla 
 and Marius dying in their beds] Pompey and 
 
54 A DEFENCE OP POESLE. 
 
 Cicero slain then when they would have thought 
 exile a happiness 1 See we not virtuous Cato 
 driven to kill himself, and rebel Caesar so advanced, 
 that his name yet, after sixteen hundred years, 
 lasteth in the highest honour 1 And mark but even 
 Caesar's own words of the forenamed Sylla, (who in 
 that only did honestly, to put down his dishonest 
 tyranny), ** literas nescivit : " as if want of learning 
 caused him to do well. He meant it not by poetry, 
 which, not content with earthly plagues, deviseth 
 new punishment in hell for tyrants : nor yet by 
 philosophy, which teach eth " occidentes esse : " but, 
 no doubt, by skill in history ; for that, indeed, can 
 afford you Cypselus, Periander, Phalaris, Dionysius, 
 and I know not how many more of the same kennel, 
 that speed well enough in their abominable injustice 
 of usurpation. 
 
 I conclude, therefore, that he excelleth history, 
 not only in furnishing the mind with knowledge, 
 but in setting it forward to that which deserves to 
 be called and accounted good : which setting for- 
 ward, and moving to well-doing, indeed, setteth the 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 65 
 
 laurel crowns upon the poets as victorious; not 
 only of the historian, but over the philosopher, 
 howsoever, in teaching, it may be questionable. 
 For suppose it be granted, that which I suppose, 
 with great reason, may be denied, that the philo- 
 sopher, in respect of his methodical proceeding, 
 teach more perfectly than the poet, yet do I think, 
 that no man is so much <fn\o(piK6(To^oQ, as to compare 
 the philosopher in moving with the poet. And 
 that moving is of a higher degree than teaching, it 
 may by this appear, that it is well nigh both the 
 cause and effect of teaching ; for who will be taught, 
 if he be not moved with desire to be taught 1 And 
 what so much good doth that teaching bring forth 
 (I speak still of moral doctrine) as that it moveth 
 one to do that which it doth teach. For, as 
 Aristotle saith, it is not y vw<7tc but Trpd^ig ^ must be 
 the fruit : and how Trpd^ig can be, without being 
 moved to practise, it is no hard matter to consider. 
 The philosopher showeth you the way, he informeth 
 you of the particularities, as well of the tediousness 
 1 Not knowledge but practice. 
 
56 A DEFENCE oF POESIE. 
 
 of the way and of the pleasant lodging you 
 shall have when your journey is ended, as of the 
 many by-turnings that may divert you from your 
 way ; but this is to no man, but to him that will read 
 him, and read him with attentive, studious pain- 
 fulness ; which constant desire whosoever hath in 
 him, hath already passed half the hardness of the 
 way, and therefore is beholden to the philosopher 
 but for the other half. Nay, truly, learned men 
 have learnedly thought, that where once reason 
 hath so much over-mastered passion, as that the 
 mind hath a free desire to do well, the inward 
 light each mind hath in itself is as good as a philo- 
 sopher's book : since in nature we know it is well 
 to do well, and what is well and what is evil, 
 although not in the words of art which philosophers 
 bestow upon us; for out of natural conceit the 
 philosophers drew it ; but to be moved to do thstt ♦ 
 which we know, or to be moved with desire t-o kno\v, 
 " hoc opus, hie labor est." 
 
 ^Now, therein, of all sciences (1 speak still of 
 1 The Poet Monarch of all Human Sciences, 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 57 
 
 human, and according to the human conceit), is our 
 poet the monarch. For he doth not only show the 
 way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, 
 as will entice any man to enter into it ; nay, he 
 doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair 
 vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of 
 grapes, that full of that taste you may long to pass 
 farther. He beginneth not with obscure definitions, 
 which must blur the margin with interpretations, 
 and load the memory with doubtfulness, but he 
 cometh to you with words set in delightful propor- 
 tion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the 
 well-enchanting sKill of music; and with a tale, 
 forsooth, he cometh unto you with a tale which 
 holdeth children from play, and old men from the 
 chimney-comer ; ^ and, pretending no more, doth 
 
 1 In "Love's Labour's Lost " a resemblance has been fancied 
 between this passage and Kosalind's description of Biron, and 
 the jest : — 
 
 •' Which his fair tongue — conceit's expositor — 
 Delivers in such apt and gracious words, 
 That aged ears play truant at his tables, 
 And younger hearings are quite ravished, 
 So sweet and voluble is his discourse." 
 
58 A DEFENCE OF FOESIE. 
 
 intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to 
 virtue ; even as the child is often brought to take 
 most wholesome things, by hiding them in such 
 other as have a pleasant taste ; which, if one should 
 begin to tell them the nature of the aloes or 
 rhubarbarum they should receive, would sooner 
 take their physic at their ears than at their mouth ; 
 so it is in men (most of them are childish in the 
 best things, till they be cradled in their graves) ; 
 glad they will be to hear the tales of Hercules, 
 Achilles, Cyrus, ^neas ; and hearing them, must 
 needs hear the right description of wisdom, valour, 
 and justice ; which, if they had been barely (that 
 is to say, philosophically) set out, they would swear 
 they be brought to school again. That imitation 
 whereof poetry is, hath the most conveniency to 
 nature of all other ; insomuch that, as Aristotle 
 saith, those things which in themselves are horrible, 
 as cruel battles, unnatural monsters, are made, in 
 poetical imitation, delightful. Truly, I have known 
 men, that even with reading Amadis de Gaule, 
 which, God knoweth, wanteth much of a perfect 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 59 
 
 poesy, have found their hearts moved to the exercise 
 of courtesy, liberality, and especially courage. Who 
 readeth .^neas carrying old Anchises on his back, 
 that wisheth not it were his fortune to perform so 
 excellent an act 1 Whom doth not those words of 
 Turnus move (the tale of Turnus having planted 
 his image in the imagination) 
 
 ** f ugientem haso terra videbit ? 
 
 Usque adeone mori miserum est ? " ^ 
 
 Where the philosophers (as they think) scorn to 
 delight, so much they be content little to move, 
 saving wrangling whether " virtus '' be the chief or 
 the only good ; whether the contemplative or the 
 active life do excel ; which Plato and Boetius well 
 knew ; and therefore made mistress Philosophy 
 vety often borrow the masking raiment of poesy. 
 For even those hard-hearted evil men, who think 
 
 1 Virgil's *' jEneid," Book xii. :— 
 
 " And shall this ground fainthearted dastard 
 Turnus flying view ? 
 Is it so vile a thing to die ? " 
 
 (Phaer's Translation [1573].) 
 
60 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 Virtue a school-name, and know no other good but 
 " indulgere genio,'^ and therefore despise the austere 
 admonitions of the philosopher, and feel not the 
 inward reason they stand upon ; yet will be content 
 to be delighted, which is all the good-fellow poet 
 seems to promise ; and so steal to see the form of 
 goodness, which seen, they cannot but love, ere 
 themselves be aware, as if they took a medicine of 
 cherries. 
 
 ^ Infinite proofs of the strange effects of this 
 poetical invention might be alleged ; only two 
 shall serve, which are so often remembered, as, I 
 think, all men know them. The one of Menenius 
 Agrippa, who, when the whole people of E-ome 
 had resolutely divided themselves from the senate, 
 with apparent show of utter ruin, though he were, 
 for that time, an excellent orator, came not among 
 them upon trust, either of figurative speeches, or 
 cunning insinuations, and much less with far- 
 fetched maxims of philosophy, which, especially 
 if they were Platonic, they must have learned 
 I Instances of the power of the Poet's work. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 61 
 
 geometry before they could have conceived ; but. 
 forsooth, he behaveth himself like a homely and 
 familiar poet. He telleth them a tale, that there 
 was a time when all the parts of the body made 
 a mutinous conspiracy against the belly, which 
 they thought devoured the fruits of each other's 
 labour ; they concluded they would let so un- 
 profitable a spender starve. In the end, to be 
 short (for the tale is notorious, and as notorious 
 that it was a tale), with punishing the belly they 
 plagued themselves. This, applied by him, wrought 
 such effect in the people as I never read that only 
 words brought forth ; but then so sudden, and so 
 good an alteration, for upon reasonable conditions 
 a perfect reconcilement ensued. 
 
 The other is of Nathan the prophet, who, when 
 the holy David had so far forsaken God, as to 
 confirm adultery with murder, when he was to 
 do the tenderest office of a friend, in laying his 
 own shame before his eyes, being sent by God to 
 call again so chosen a servant, how doth he it *? but 
 by telling of a man whose beloved lamb was 
 
62 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 imgrateruUy taken from his bosom. The application 
 most divinely true, but the discourse itself feigned ; 
 which made David (I speak of the second and 
 instrumental cause) as in a glass see his own 
 filthiness, as that heavenly psalm of mercy well 
 testifieth. 
 
 By these, therefore, examples and reasons, I 
 think it may be manifest that the poet, with that 
 same hand of delight, doth draw the mind more 
 effectually than any other art doth. And so a 
 conclusion not unfitly ensues; that as virtue is 
 the most excellent resting-place for all worldly 
 learning to make his end of, so poetry, being the 
 most familiar to teach it, and most princely to 
 move towards it, in the most excellent work is the 
 most excellent workman. 
 
 But I am content not only to decipher him 
 by his works (although works in commendation 
 and dispraise must ever hold a high authority), 
 but more narrowly will examine his parts; so 
 that (as in a man) though all together may 
 carry a presence full of majesty and beauty 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 63 
 
 perchance in some one defectuous^ piece we may 
 find blemish. 
 
 2 Now, in his parts, kinds, or species, as you 
 list to term them, it is to be noted that some 
 poesies have coupled together two or three kinds ; 
 as the tragical and comical, whereupon is risen 
 the tragi-comical ; some, in the manner, have 
 mingled prose and verse, as Sannazaro and Boetius ; 
 some have mingled matters heroical and pastoral ; 
 but that cometh all to one in this question ; for, 
 if severed they be good, the conjunction cannot 
 be hurtful. Therefore, perchance, forgetting some, 
 and leaving some as needless to be remembered, 
 it shall not be amiss, in a word, to cite the special 
 kinds, to see what faults may be found in the 
 right use of them. 
 
 Is it, then, the pastoral poem which is misliked f 
 For, perchance, where the hedge is lowest, they 
 will soonest leap over. Is the poor pipe disdained, 
 
 1 De/ectuous. This word, from the French " defectueux," is 
 used twice in the " Apologie for Poetrie." 
 
 2 § II. The Parts of Poetry. 
 
 3 Can Pastoral he condemned ? 
 
64 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 which sometimes, out of Melibsens's mouth, can 
 show the misery of people under hard lords and 
 ravening soldiers 1 And again, by Tityrus, what 
 blessedness is derived to them that lie lowest from 
 the goodness of them that sit highest 1 Sometimes 
 under the pretty tales of wolves and sheep, can 
 include the whole considerations of wrong doing 
 and patience ; sometimes show, that contentions 
 for trifles can get but a trifling victory ; where, 
 perchance, a man may see that even Alexander 
 and Darius, when they strove who should be cock 
 of this world's dunghill, the benefit they got was, 
 that the after-livers may say, 
 
 " HaBC memini, et victum frustra contendere Thyrsim. 
 Ex illo Cory don, Cory don est tempore nobis." i 
 
 Or is it the lamenting elegiac,^ which, in a kind 
 neart, would move rather pity than blame ; who 
 bewaileth, with the great philosopher Heraclitus, 
 the weakness of mankind, and the wretchedness oi 
 
 1 The close of Virgil's seventh Eclogue — Thyrsis was van- 
 luished, and Corydon crowned with lasting glory. 
 
 2 Or Elegiac ? 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESIE 65 
 
 the world ; who, surely, is to be praised, either 
 for compassionately accompanying just causes of 
 lamentations, or for rightly pointing out how weak 
 be the passions of wofulness ? 
 
 Is it the bitter, but wholesome iambic,^ who 
 rubs the galled mind, making shame the trumpet 
 of villany, with bold and open crying out against 
 naughtiness ? 
 
 Or the satiric ^ who, 
 
 " Ornne vafer vitium ridenti tangit amico ; " 2 
 
 1 Or Iambic ? or Satiric ? 
 
 2 From the first Satire of Pcrsius, line 116, in a description 
 of Homer's satire : 
 
 *' Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico 
 Tangit, et admissus circum praecordia ludit," &c. 
 
 Shrewd Flaccus touches each vice in his laughin^c fricuil. 
 Dryden thus translated the whole passage : — 
 
 ** Unlike in method, with concealed design 
 Did crafty Horace his low numbers join ; 
 And, with a sly insinuating grace 
 Laughed at his friend, and looked him in the face : 
 Would raise a blush where secret vice he found ; 
 And tickle, while he gently probed the wound ; 
 With seeming innocence the crowd beguiled. 
 But made the desperate passes wliile he smiled. " 
 19- E 
 
6S A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 who sportingly never leavetli, until he make a man 
 laugh at folly, and, at length, ashamed to laugh 
 at himself, which he cannot avoid without avoiding 
 the folly ; who, while " circum prsecordia ludit," 
 giveth us to feel how many headaches a passionate 
 life bringeth us to ; who when all is done, 
 
 "Est Ulubris, animus si nos non deficit aequus."^ 
 
 1 From the end of the eleventh of Horace's epistles (Lib. 1) : 
 
 " Coelum non aiiimum mutant, qui trans mare currunt, 
 Strenua nos exercet inertia ; navibus atque 
 Quadrigis pctimus bene vivere. Quod petis, hie est, 
 Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit ajquus. " 
 They change their skies but not their mind who run across 
 
 the seas ; 
 "SVe toil in laboured idleness, and seek to live at ease 
 With force of ships and four horse teams. That which you 
 
 seek is here, 
 At Ulubrse, unless your mind fail to be calm and clear. 
 
 " At Ulubrse " was equivalent to saying in the dullest 
 corner of the world, or anywhere. Ulubri© was a little town 
 probably in Campania, a Koman Little Pedlington. Thomas 
 Carlyle may have had this passage in mind when he gave to 
 the same thought a grander form in Sartor Resartus : "May 
 we not say that the hour of spiritual enfranchisement is even 
 this ? When your ideal world, wherein the whole man has 
 bceu dimly struggling and inexpressibly languishing to work, 
 
A DEFENCE OF POEfSIE. 67 
 
 No, perchance, it is the comic ; ^ whom naughty 
 play-makers and stage-keepers have justly made 
 odious. To the arguments of abuse I will after 
 answer ; only thus much now is to be said, that 
 the comedy is an imitation of the common errors 
 of our life, which he representeth in the most 
 ridiculous and scornful sort that may be ; so as 
 it is impossible that any beholder can be content 
 to be such a one. Now, as in geometry, the 
 oblique must be known as well as the right, and 
 
 becomes revealed and thrown open, and you discover with 
 amazement enough, like the Lothario in Wilhelm Meister, that 
 your America is here or nowhere. The situation that has not 
 its duty, its ideal, was never occupied by man. Yes, here, in 
 this poor, miserable hampered actual wherein thou even now 
 standest, here or nowhere, is thy Ideal : work it out therefrom, 
 believe, live, and be free. Fool ! the Ideal is in thyself, the 
 impediment too is in thyself. Thy condition is but the stuff 
 thou art to shape that same Ideal out of. What matter 
 whether such stuif be of this sort or that, so the form thou 
 give it be heroic, be poetic ? O thou that pinest in the im- 
 prisonment of the actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for 
 a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth, 
 the thing thou seekest is already with thee, here or nowhere, 
 couldst thou only see." 
 - Or Comic ? 
 
68 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 in arithmetic, the odd as well as the even ; so in 
 the actions of our life, who seeth not the filthiness 
 of evil, wanteth a great foil to perceive the beauty 
 of virtue. This doth the comedy handle so, in 
 our private and domestical matters, as, with 
 hearing it, we get, as it were, an experience of 
 what is to be looked for, of a niggardly Demea, 
 of a crafty Davus, of a flattering Gnatho, of a 
 vain-glorious Thraso ; and not only to know what 
 effects are to be expected, but to know who be 
 such, by the signifying badge given them by the 
 comedian. And little reason hath any man to say, 
 that men learn the evil by seeing it so set out ; 
 since, as I said before, there is no man living, but 
 by the force truth hath in nature, no sooner seeth 
 these men play their parts, but wisheth them in 
 " pistrinum ; " ^ although, perchance^ the sack ot 
 his own faults lie so behind his back, that he 
 seeth not himself to dance in the same measure, 
 whereto yet nothing can more open his eyes than 
 
 1 In pistrinum. In the pounding-mill (usually worked by 
 horses or asses). 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 69 
 
 to see nis own actions contemptibly set forth ; so 
 that the right use of coraedv will. I think, by 
 nobody be blamed. 
 
 And much less of the high and excellent tragedy,; 
 that openeth the greatest wounds, and showeth 
 forth the ulcers that are covered with tissue ; that 
 maketh kings fear to be tyrants, and tyrants to 
 manifest their tyrannical humours ; that with 
 stirring the effects of admiration and commisera- 
 tion, teacheth the uncertainty of this world, and 
 upon how weak foundations gilded roofs are 
 builded ; that maketh us know, " qui sceptra saevus 
 duro imperio regit, timet timentes, metus in 
 authorem redit." But how much it can move, 
 Plutarch yielded a notable testimony of the 
 abominable tyrant Alexander Pherseus ; from whose 
 eyes a tragedy, well made and represented, drew 
 abundance of tears, who without all pity had 
 murdered infinite numbers, and some of his own 
 blood ; so as he that was not ashamed to make 
 matters for tragedies, yet could not resist the 
 I Or Tragic? 
 
70 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 sweet violence of a tragedy. And if it wrought no 
 farther good in him, it was that he, in despite of 
 himself, withdrew himself from hearkening to 
 that which might mollify his hardened heart. 
 But it is not the tragedy they do dislike, for it 
 were too absurd to cast out so excellent a repre- 
 sentation of whatsoever is most worthy to be 
 learned. 
 
 Is it the lyric that most displeaseth, who with 
 his tuned lyre and well-accorded voice, giveth 
 praise, the reward of virtue, to virtuous acts l who 
 giveth moral precepts and natural problems 1 who 
 sometimes raiseth up his voice to the height of 
 the heavens, in singing the lauds of the immortal 
 God 1 Certainly, I must confess mine own bar- 
 barousness ; I never heard the old song of Percy 
 and Douglas, that I found not my heart moved 
 more than with a trumpet ; ^ and yet it is sung 
 but by some blind crowder, with no rougher voice 
 than rude style ; which being so evil apparelled in 
 
 ^ The old song of Percy and Douglas j Chevy Chase in its 
 first form. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 71 
 
 the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what 
 would it work, trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence 
 of Pindar 1 In Hungary I have seen it the manner 
 at all feasts, and all other such-like meetings, to 
 have songs of their ancestors' valour, which that 
 right soldier-like nation think one of the chiefest 
 kindlers of brave courage. The incomparable 
 Lacedaemonians did not only carry that kind of 
 music ever with them to the field, but even at 
 home, as such songs were made, so were they all 
 content to l)e singers of them ; when the hist^ 
 men were to tell what they did, the old men what 
 they had done, and the young what they would 
 do. And where a man may say that Pindar many 
 times praiseth highly victories of small moment, 
 rather matters of sport than virtue ; as it may be 
 answered, it was the fault of the poet, and not of 
 the poetry, so, indeed, the chief fault was in the 
 time and custom of the Greeks, who set those 
 toys at so high a price, that Philip of Macedon 
 reckoned a horse-race won at Olympus among 
 his three fearful felicities. But as the inimitable 
 
72 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 Pindar often did, so is that kind most capable, 
 and most fit, to awake the thoughts from the 
 sleep of idleness, to embrace honourable enter- 
 prises. 
 
 There rests the heroical,^ whose very name, I 
 
 think, should daunt all backbiters. For by what 
 
 conceit can a tongue be directed to speak evil of 
 
 that which draweth with him no less champions 
 
 tlian Achilles, Cyrus, ^neas, Turns, Tydeus, 
 
 Rinaldo 1 who doth not only teach and move to 
 
 ^. truth, but teacheth and moveth to the most high 
 
 \ and excellent truth : who maketh magnanimity 
 
 V and justice shine through all misty fearfulness and 
 
 foggy desires *? who, if the saying of Plato and 
 
 Tully be true, that who could see virt\ie, would be 
 
 wonderfully ravished with the love of her beauty ; 
 
 1 this man setteth her out to make her more lovely, 
 
 in her holiday apparel, to the eye of any that will 
 
 deign not to disdain until they understand. But 
 
 if any thing be already said in the defence of 
 
 sweet poetry, all concurreth to the^ maintaining 
 
 1 Or the Heroic f 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 73 
 
 the heroical, which is not only a kind, but the 
 best and most accomplished kind, of poetry. For^ 
 as the image of each action stirreth and in- 
 structeth the mind, so the lofty image of such 
 worthies most inflameth the mind with desire to 
 be worthy, and informs with counsel how to be 
 worthy. Only let ^neas be worn in tlie tablet of 
 your memory, how he governeth himself in the 
 ruin of his country ; in the preserving his old 
 father, and carrying away his religious ceremonies ; 
 in obeying God's commandments, to leave Dido, 
 though not only passionate kindness, but even 
 the human consideration of virtuous gratefulness, 
 would have craved other of him ; how in storms, 
 how in sports, how in war, how in peace, how a 
 fugitive, how victorious, how besieged, liow be- 
 sieging, how to strangers, how to allies, how to 
 enemies ; how to his own, lastly, how in his in- 
 ward self, and how in his outward government ; 
 and J think, in a mind most prejudiced with a 
 prejudicating humour, he will be found in excel- 
 lency fruitful. Yea as Horace saith, " Melius 
 
74 A DEFENCE OF POESTB. 
 
 Chrysippo et Crantore : " ^ but, truly, I imagine 
 it falleth oat with these poet- whip pers as with 
 some good women who often are sick, but in faith 
 they cannot tell where. So the name of poetry is 
 odious to them, but neither his cause nor effects, 
 neither the sum that contains him, nor the par- 
 ticularities descending from him, give any fast 
 handle to their carping dispraise. 
 \ Since, then,^ poetry is of all human learnings 
 
 the most ancient, and of most fatherly antiquity, 
 as from whence other learnings have taken their 
 beginnings ; since it is so universal that no learned 
 nation doth despise it, nor barbarous nation is 
 without it; since both Roman and Greek gave 
 such divine names unto it, the one of prophesying, 
 the other of making, and that indeed that name 
 of making is fit for him, considering, that where 
 all other arts retain themselves within their subject, 
 and receive, as it were, their being from it, the 
 
 1 Epistles I. ii. 4. Better than Chrysippus and Grantor. 
 They were both philosophers, Chrysippus a subtle stoic, 
 Grantor the first commentator upon Plato, 
 
 2 Summary oftft£ argument thus far. 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 75 
 
 poet only, only bringeth his own stuff, and doth 
 not learn a conceit out of a matter, but maketh 
 matter for a conceit ; since neither his description 
 nor end containeth any evil, the thing described 
 cannot be evil ; since his eifects be so good as 
 to teach goodness, and delight the learners of it ; 
 since therein (namely, in moral doctrine, the chief 
 of all knowledges) he doth not only far pass the 
 historian, but, for instructing, is well nigh com- 
 parable to the philosopher; for moving, leaveth 
 him behind him ; since the Holy Scripture (where- 
 in there is no uncleanness) hath whole parts in it 
 poetical, and that even our Saviour Christ vouch- 
 safed to use the flowers of it ; since all his kinds 
 are not only in their united forms, but in their 
 severed dissections fully commendable ; I think, 
 and think I think rightly, the laurel crown ap- 
 pointed for triumphant captains, doth vsrorthily, 
 of all other learnings, honour the poet's triumph. 
 
 ^ But because we have ears as well as tongues, 
 and that the lightest reasons that may be, will seem 
 1 Objections stated and met. 
 
76 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 to weigh greatl}^, if nothing be put in the counter- 
 balance, let us hear, and, as well as we can, ponder 
 what objections be made against this art, which 
 may be worthy either of yielding or answering. 
 
 First, truly, I note, not only in these fiitro^ovffoi, 
 poet-haters, but in all that kind of people who seek 
 a praise by dispraising others, that they do pro- 
 digally spend a great many wandering words in 
 quips and scoffs, carping and taunting at each thing, 
 wliich, by stirring the spleen, may stay the brain 
 from a tliorough beholding the worthiness of the 
 subject. Those kind of objections, as they are full 
 of a very idle uneasiness (since there is nothing of 
 so sacred a majesty, but that an itching tongue 
 may rub itself upon it), so deserve they no other 
 answer, but, instead of laughing at the jest, to 
 laugh at the jester. We know a playing wit can 
 praise the discretion of an ass, the comfortableness 
 of being in debt, and the jolly commodities of being 
 sick of the plague ; so, of the contrary side, if we 
 will turn Ovid's verse, 
 
 " Ut lateat virtus proximitate mali.** 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 77 
 
 '' That good lies hid in nearness of the evil/' 
 Agrippa will be as merry in the showing the 
 Vanity of Science, as Erasmus was in the com- 
 mending of Folly ;^ neither shall any man or matter 
 escape some touch of these smiling railers. But for 
 Erasmus and Agrippa, they had another foundation 
 than the superficial part would promise. Marry, 
 these other pleasant fault-finders, who will correct 
 the verb before they understand the noun, and con 
 fute others' knowledge before they confirm their 
 own; I would have them only remember, that scoff*- 
 ing cometh not of wisdom ; so as the best title in 
 true English they get with their merriments, is to 
 be called good fools ; for so have our grave fore- 
 fathers ever termed that humorous kind of jesters. 
 But that which giveth greatest scope to their 
 scorning humour, is rhyming and versing.^ It is 
 already said, and, as I think, truly said, it is not 
 
 1 Cornelius Agrippa's book, "De Incertitudine et Vanitate 
 Sdentiarum et Artium," was first published in 1532 ; Erasmus's 
 " Moriae Encomium " was written in a week, in 1510, and went 
 in a few months through seven editions. 
 
 2 The objection to rhyme and metre. 
 
78 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 rhyming and versing that maketh poesy ; one may 
 be a poet without versing, and a versifier without 
 poetry. But yet, presuppose it were inseparable, 
 as indeed, it seemeth Scaliger judgeth truly, it were 
 an inseparable commendation ; for if ** oratio " next 
 to " ratio," speech next to reason, be the greatest 
 gift bestowed upon mortality, that cannot be praise- 
 less which doth most polish that blessing of speech ; 
 which considereth each word, not only as a man 
 may say by his forcible quality, but by his best 
 measured quantity ; carrying even in themselves a 
 harmony ; without, perchance, number, measure, 
 order, proportion be in our time grown odious. 
 But lay aside the just praise it hath, by being 
 '^ the only fit speech for music — music, I say, the 
 most divine striker of the senses; thus much is 
 undoubtedly true, that if reading be foolish with- 
 out remembering, memory being the only treasure 
 of knowledge, those words which are fittest for 
 memory, are likewise most convenient for know- 
 ledge. Now, that verse far exceedeth prose in the 
 knitting up of the memory, the reason is manifest : 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 79 
 
 the words, besides their delight, which hath a great 
 affinity to memory, being so set as one cannot be 
 lost, but the whole work fails : which accusing 
 itself, calleth the remembrance back to itself, and 
 so most strongly confirmeth it. Besides, one word 
 so, as it were, begetting another, as, be it in rhyme 
 or measured verse, by the former a man shall have 
 a near guess to the follower. Lastly, even they 
 that have taught the art of memory, have showed 
 nothing so apt for it as a certain room divided into 
 many places, well and thoroughly known ; now 
 that hath the verse in effect perfectly, every word 
 having his natural seat, which seat must needs 
 make the word remembered. But what needs 
 more in a thing so known to all men ? Who is it 
 that ever was a scholar that doth not carry away 
 some verses of Yirgil, Horace, or Cato, which in 
 his youth he learned, and even to his old age serve 
 him for hourly lessons 1 as, 
 
 " Percontatorem f ugito : nam garrulus idem est. 
 Dum sibi quisque placet credula turba sumus." i 
 
 1 The first of these sentences is from Horace (Epistle I., 
 
80 A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 
 
 But the fitness it hath for memory is notably 
 proved by all delivery of arts, wherein, for the 
 most part, from grammar to logic, mathematics, 
 physic, and the rest, the rules chiefly necessary to 
 be borne away are compiled in verses. So that 
 verse being in itself sweet and orderly, and being 
 best for memory, the only handle of knowledge, it 
 must be in jest that any man can speak against it. 
 
 ^ Now then go we to the most important impu- 
 tations laid to the poor poets j 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. 
 
 xviii. 69) : "Fly from the inquisitive man, for he is a babbler." 
 The second, "While each pleases himself we are a credulous 
 crowd," seems to be varied from Ovid (Fasti, iv. 311) : — 
 " Conscia mens recti famae mendacia risit : 
 Sed nos in vitium credula turba sumus." 
 A mmd conscious of right laughs at the falsehoods of fame 
 but towards vice we are a credulous crowd, 
 • The chic] objections. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 81 
 
 Thirdly, that it is the nurse of abuse, infecting 
 us with many pestilent desires, with a syren sweet- 
 ness, drawing the mind to the serpent's tail of sin- 
 ful 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 
 3xercises, 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, to the first, that a man might better 
 spend his time, is a reason indeed ; but it doth, as 
 they say, but *'petere principium."^ 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 
 
 1 That time might he letter spent, 
 ' Beg the question 
 
 19-F 
 
l\J 
 
 82X A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 
 
 and paper cannot be to a more profitable purpose 
 employed. And certainly, though a man should 
 grant their first assumption, it should follow, me- 
 thinks, very unwillingly, that good is not good 
 because better is better. But I still and utterly 
 deny that there is sprung out of earth a more_ 
 fruitful knowledge. 
 
 ^To the second, therefore, that they should be 
 the principal liars, I answer paradoxically, but 
 truly, I think truly, that of all writers under the 
 sun, the poet is the least liar ; and though he 
 would, as a poet, can scarcely be a liar. The 
 astronomer, with his cousin the geometrician, can 
 hardly escape when they take upon them to measure 
 the height of the stars. How often, think you, do 
 the physicians lie, when they aver things good for 
 sicknesses, which afterwards send Charon a great 
 number of souls drowned in a potion before they 
 come to his ferry. And no less of the rest which 
 take upon them to afiirm. Now for the poet, he 
 nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth ; for, 
 ^ That poetry is the mother of lies. 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESIB. 83 
 
 « 
 
 as I take it, to lie is to affirm that to be true which 
 is false : so as the other artists, and especially the 
 historian, affirmeth many things, can, in the cloudy 
 knowledge of mankind, hardly escape from many 
 lies : but the poet, as I said before, never affirmeth ; 
 the poet never maketh any circles about your 
 imagination, to conjure you to believe for true 
 what he writeth : he citeth not authorities of other 
 histories, but even for his entry calleth the sweet 
 Muses to inspire into him a good invention ; in 
 troth, not labouring to tell you what is or is not, 
 but what should or should not be. And, therefore, 
 though he recount things not true, yet because he 
 telleth them not for true he lieth not ; without we 
 will say that Nathan lied in his speech, before 
 alleged, to David ; which, as a wicked man durst 
 scarce say, so think I none so simple would say, 
 that ^sop lied in the tales of his beasts ; for who 
 thinketh that ^sop wrote it for actually true, 
 were well worthy to have his name chronicled 
 among the beasts he writeth of. What child is 
 there that cometh to a play, and seeing Thebes 
 
84 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 written in great letters upon an old door, doth 
 believe that it is Thebes? If then a man can 
 arrive to the child's age, to know that the poet's 
 persons and doings are but pictures what should 
 be, and not stories what have been, they will never 
 give the lie to things not affirmatively, but alle- 
 gorically and figuratively written ; and therefore, 
 as in history, looking for truth, they may go away 
 full fraught with falsehood, so in poesy, looking 
 but for fiction, they shall use the narration but 
 as an imaginative ground -plot of a profitable 
 invention. 
 
 But hereto is replied, that the poets give names 
 to men they write of, which argueth a conceit of 
 an actual truth, and so, not being true, prove th a 
 falsehood. And doth the lawyer lie then, when, 
 under the names of John of the Stile, and John of 
 the Nokes, he putteth his case ? But that is easily 
 answered, their naming of men is but to make 
 their picture the more lively, and not to build any 
 history. Painting men, they cannot leave men 
 nameless ; we see we cannot play at chess but that 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIB. 85 
 
 we must give names to our chess-men : and yet, 
 methinks, he were a very partial champion of truth 
 that would say we lied for giving a piece of wood 
 the reverend title of a bishop. The poet nameth 
 Cyrus and ^neas no other way than to show what 
 men of their fames, fortunes, and estates should do. 
 ^ Their third is, how much it abuseth men's wit, 
 training it to a wanton sinfulness and lustful love. 
 For, indeed, that is the principal if not only abuse 
 I can hear alleged. They say the comedies rather 
 teach, than reprehend, amorous conceits ; they say 
 the lyric is larded with passionate sonnets ; the 
 elegiac weeps the want of his mistress ; and that 
 even to the heroical Cupid hath ambitiously climbed. 
 Alas ! Love, I would thou couldst as well defend 
 thyself, as thou canst offend others ! I would those 
 on whom thou dost attend, could either put thee 
 away or yield good reason why they keep thee ! 
 But grant love of beauty to be a beastly fault, 
 although it be very hard, since only man, and no 
 
 1 That poetry is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with wanton 
 and pestilent desires. 
 
86 A DEFENCE OF POESIB. 
 
 beast, hath that gift to discern beauty ; grant that 
 lovely name of love to deserve all hateful reproaches, 
 although even some of my masters the philosophers 
 spent a good deal of their lamp-oil in setting forth 
 th© excellency of it ; grant, I say, what they will 
 have granted, that not only love, but lust, but 
 vanity, but, if they list, scurrility, possess many 
 leaves of the poets' books ; yet, think I, when this 
 is granted, they will find their sentence may, with 
 good manners, put the last words foremost ; and 
 not say that poetry abuseth man's wit, but that 
 man's wit abuseth poetry. For I will not deny 
 but that man's wit may make poesy, which should 
 be <l>pacrr.iKri, which some learned have defined, 
 figuring forth good things, to be (ftavTatTTiK^, which 
 doth contrariwise infect the fancy with unworthy 
 objects ; as the painter, who should give to the eye 
 either some excellent perspective, or some fine 
 picture fit for building or fortification, or contain- 
 ing in it some notable example, as Abraham sacri- 
 ficing his son Isaac, Judith killing Holofernes, 
 David fighting with Goliath, may leave those, and 
 
A BEJb'ENCE OF POESIE. 87 
 
 please an ill-pleased eye with wanton shows of 
 better-hidden matters. 
 
 But, what ! shall the abuse of a thing make the 
 right use odious 1 Nay, truly, though I yield that 
 poesy may not only be abused, but that being 
 abused, by the reason of his sweet charming force, 
 it can do more hurt than any other army of words, 
 yet shall it be so far from concluding, that the 
 abuse shall give reproach to the abused, that, con- 
 trariwise, it is a good reason, that whatsoever being 
 abused, doth most harm, being rightly used (and 
 upon the right use each thing receives his title) 
 doth most good. Do we not see skill of physic, 
 the best rampire^ to our often-assaulted bodies, 
 being abused, teach poison, the most violent de- 
 stroyer 1 Doth not knowledge of law, whose end 
 is to even and right all things, being abused, grow 
 the crooked fosterer of horrible injuries'? Doth 
 not (to go in the highest) God's word abused breed 
 heresy, and His name abused become blasphemy ? 
 
 ^ Rampire^ rampart, the Old French form of "rempart,'' 
 was '*rempar," from "remparer," to fortify 
 
88 A DEFENCE OF POESIB. 
 
 Truly, a needle cannot do much hurt, and as truly 
 (with leave of ladies be it spoken) it cannot do 
 much good. With a sword thou mayest kill thy 
 father, and with a sword thou mayest defend thy 
 prince and country; so that, as in their calling 
 poets fathers of lies, they said nothing, so in this 
 their argument of abuse, they prove the com- 
 mendation. 
 
 They allege herewith, that before poets began to 
 be in price, our nation had set their heart's delight 
 upon action, and not imagination; rather doing 
 things worthy to be written, than writing things 
 fit to be done. What that before time was, I think 
 scarcely Sphynx can tell ; since no memory is so 
 ancient that gives not the precedence to poetry. 
 And certain it is, that, in our plainest homeliness, 
 yet never was the Albion nation without poetry. 
 Marry, this argument, though it be levelled against 
 poetry, yet it is indeed a chain-shot against all 
 learning or bookishness, as they commonly term it. 
 Of such mind were certain Goths, of whom it is 
 written, that having in the spoil of a famous city 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIB. 89 
 
 taken a fair library, one hangman, belike fit to 
 execute the fruits of their wits, who had murdered 
 a great number of bodies, would have set fire in it. 
 " No," said another, very gravely, " take heed what 
 you do, for while they are busy about those toys, 
 we shall with more leisure conquer their countries." 
 This, indeed, is the ordinaiy doctrine of ignorance, 
 and many words sometimes I have heard spent in 
 it ; but because this reason is generally against all 
 learning, as well as poetry, or rather all learning 
 but poetry ; because it were too large a digression 
 to handle it, or at least too superfluous, since it is 
 manifest that all government of action is to be 
 gotten by knowledge, and knowledge best by 
 gathering many knowledges, which is reading ; 
 I only say with Horace, to him that is of that 
 opinion, 
 
 " Jubeo stultum esse libenter " ^ 
 
 lor as for poetry itself, it is the freest from this 
 
 1 "I give him free leave to be foolish." A variation from 
 the line {SaL I. i. 63), " Quid facias illi? jubeas miserum esse 
 libenter." 
 
90 A DEFENCE OP POESIB. 
 
 objection, for poetry is the companion of camps. 
 I dare undertake, Orlando Furioso, or honest King 
 Arthur, will never displease a soldier : but the 
 quiddity of *-ens" and "prima materia" will 
 hardly agree with a corslet. And, therefore, as 
 I said in the beginning, even Turks and Tartars 
 are delighted with poets. Homer, a Greek, 
 flourished before Greece flourished ; and if to a 
 slight conjecture a conjecture may be opposed, 
 truly it may seem, that as by him their learned 
 men took almost their first light of knowledge, so 
 their active men receive their first notions of cour- 
 age. Only Alexander's example may serve, who 
 by Plutarch is accounted of such virtue that for- 
 tune was not his guide but his footstool ; whose 
 acts speak for him, though Plutarch did not; 
 indeed, the phoenix of warlike princes. This 
 Alexander left his schoolmaster, living Aristotle, 
 behind him, but took dead Homer with him. He 
 put the philosopher Callisthenes to death, for his 
 seeming philosophical, indeed mutinous, stubborn- 
 ness ; but the chief thing he was ever heard to 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 91 
 
 wish for was that Homer had been alive. He well 
 found he received more bravery of mind by the 
 pattern of Achilles, than by hearing the definition 
 of fortitude. And, therefore, if Cato misliked 
 Fiilvius for carrying Ennius with him to the field, 
 it may be answered that if Cato misliked it the 
 noble Fulvius liked it, or else he had not done it ; 
 for it was not the excellent Cato Uticensis whose 
 authority I would much more have reverenced, but 
 it was the former, in truth a bitter punish er of 
 faults, but else a man that had never sacrificed to 
 the Graces. He misliked, and cried out against, 
 all Greek learning, and yet, being fourscore years 
 old, began to learn it, belike fearing that Pluto 
 understood not Latin. Indeed, the Koman laws 
 allowed no person to be carried to the wars but he 
 that was in the soldiers' roll. And, therefore, 
 though Cato misliked his unmustered person, he 
 misliked not his work. And if he had, Scipio 
 Nasica (judged by common consent the best Ro- 
 man) loved him : both the other Scipio brothers, 
 who had by their virtues no less surnames than of 
 
92 A DEFENCE OF POESIB. 
 
 Asia and Afrio, so loved him that they caused his 
 body to be buried in their sepulture. So, as Cato's 
 authority being but against his person, and that 
 answered with so far greater than himself, is herein 
 of no validity. 
 
 ^But now, indeed, my burthen is great, that 
 Plato's name is laid upon me, whom, I must con- 
 fess, of all philosophers I have ever esteemed most 
 worthy of reverence ; and with good reason, since 
 of all philosophers he is the most poetical ; yet if 
 lie will defile the fountain out of which his flowing 
 streams have proceeded, let us boldly examine with 
 what reason he did it. 
 
 First, truly, a man might maliciously object that 
 Plato, being a philosopher, was a natural enemy of 
 poets. For, indeed, after the philosophers had 
 picked out of the sweet mysteries of poetry the 
 right discerning of true points of knowledge, they 
 forthwith, putting it in method, and making a 
 school of art of that which the poets did only teach 
 by a divine delightfulness, beginning to spurn at 
 ^ That Plato banished poets from his ideal Republic. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 93 
 
 their guides, like ungrateful apprentices, were not 
 content to set up shop for themselves, but sought 
 by all means to discredit their masters ; which, by 
 the force of delight being barred them, the less 
 they could overthrow them, the more they hated 
 them. For, indeed, they found for Homer seven 
 cities strove who should have him for their citizen, 
 where many cities banished philosophers as not fit 
 members to live among them. For only repeating 
 certain of Euripides* verses many Athenians had 
 their lives saved of the Syracusans, where the 
 Athenians themselves thought many of the philoso- 
 phers unworthy to live. Certain poets, as Simon- 
 ides and Pindar, had so prevailed with Hiero the 
 First, that of a tyrant they made him a just king ; 
 where Plato could do so little with Dionysius that 
 he himself, of a philosopher, was made a slave. 
 But who should do thus, I confess, should requite 
 the objections raised against poets with like cavil- 
 lations against philosophers*; as likewise one should 
 do that should bid one read Phsedrus or Symposium 
 in Plato, or the discourse of Love in Plutarch, and 
 
94 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 see whether any poet do authorise abominable filthi 
 ness as they do. 
 
 Again, a man might ask, out of what Common- 
 wealth Plato doth banish them *? In sooth, thence 
 where he himself alloweth community of women. 
 So, as belike this banishment grew not for effem- 
 inate wantonness, since little should poetical son- 
 nets be hurtful, when a man might have what 
 woman he listed. But I honour philosophical 
 instructions, and bless the wits which bred them, 
 so as they be not abused, which is likewise stretched 
 to poetry. Saint Paul himself sets a watchword 
 upon philosophy, indeed upon the abuse. So doth 
 Plato upon the abuse, not upon poetry. Plato 
 found fault that the poets of his time filled the 
 world with wrong opinions of the gods, making 
 light tales of that unspotted essence, and therefore 
 would not have the youth depraved with such 
 opinions. Herein may much be said; let this 
 suffice : the poets did not induce such opinions, 
 but did imitate those opinions already induced. 
 For all the Greek stories can well testify that the 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESIB. 95 
 
 very religion of that time stood upon many and 
 many-fashioned gods ; not taught so by poets, but 
 followed according to their nature of imitation. 
 Who list may read in Plutarch the discourses of 
 I sis and Osiris, of the cause why oracles ceased, 
 of the Divine providence, and see whether the 
 theology of that nation stood not upon such 
 dreams, which the poets indeed superstitiously 
 observed ; and truly, since they had not the light 
 of Christ, did much better in it than the philoso- 
 phers, who, shaking off superstition, brought in 
 atheism. 
 
 Plato, therefore, whose authority I had much 
 rather justly construe than unjustly resist, meant 
 not in general of poets, in those words of which 
 Julius Scaliger saith, "qua authoritate, barbari 
 quidam atque insipidi, abuti velint ad poetas e 
 republica exigendos ^ : " but only meant to drive 
 out those wrong opinions of the Deity, whereof 
 
 1 Which authority certain barbarous and insipid writers 
 would wrest into meaning that poets were to be thrust out 
 of a state. 
 
96 A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 
 
 now, without tarther law, Christianity hath taken 
 away all the hurtful belief, perchance as he thought 
 nourished by then esteemed poets. And a man 
 need go no farther than to Plato himself to know 
 his meaning ; who, in his dialogue called " lon,^ " 
 giveth high, and rightly, divine commendation unto 
 poetry-. So as Plato, banishing the abuse, not the 
 
 ' Ion is a rliapsodist, in dialogue with Socrates, who cannot 
 inderstand why it is that his thoughts flow abundantly when 
 he talks of Homer. **I can explain," says Socrates; "your 
 talent in expounding Homer is not an art acquired by system 
 and method, otherwise it would have been applicable to other 
 poets besides. It is a special gift, imparted to you by Divine 
 power and inspiration. The like is true of the poet you ex- 
 pound. His genius does not spring from art, system, or method : 
 it is a special gift emanating from the inspiration of the Muses. 
 A poet is a light, airy, holy person, who cannot compose verses 
 at all so long as his reason remains within him. The Muses 
 take away his reason, substituting in place of it their own 
 divine inspiration and special impulse. . . . Like prophets and 
 deliverers of oracles, these poets have their reason taken away, 
 and become the servants of the gods. It is not they who, 
 bereft of their reason, speak in such sublime strains, it is the 
 god who speaks to us, and speaks through them," George 
 Grote, from whose volumes on Plato I quote this translation 
 of the passage, placed " Ion " among the genuine dialogues of 
 Plato. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 97 
 
 thing,, not banishing it, but giving due honour to 
 it, shall be our patron, and not our adversary. 
 For, indeed, I had much rather, since truly I may 
 do it, show their mistaking of Plato, under whose 
 lion's skin they would make an ass-like braying 
 against poesy, than go about to overthrow his 
 authority ; whom, the wiser a man is, the more 
 just cause he shall find to have in admiration ; 
 especially since he attributeth unto poesy more 
 than myself do, namely, to be a very inspiring of 
 a divine force, far above man's wit, as in the fore- 
 named dialogue is apparent. 
 
 Of the other side, who would show the honours 
 have been by the best sort of judgments granted 
 them, a whole sea of examples would present 
 themselves ; Alexanders, Ciesars, Scipios, all fa- 
 vourers of poets; Leelius, called the Roman Soc- 
 rates, himself a poet ; so as part of Heautontime- 
 roumenos, in Terence, was supposed to be made by 
 him. And even the Greek Socrates, whom Apollo 
 confirmed to be the only wise man, is said to have 
 spent part of his old time in putting ^sop's Fables 
 19— G 
 
98 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 into verse; and, therefore, full evil should it be- 
 come his scholar Plato to put such words in his 
 master's mouth against poets. But what needs 
 more? Aristotle writes the "Art of Poesy;'' 
 and why, if it should not be written ? Plutarch 
 teacheth the use to be gathered of them ; and how, 
 if they should not be read ? And who reads Plut- 
 arch's either history or philosophy, shall find he 
 trimmeth both their garments with guards ^ of poesy. 
 But I list not to defend poesy with the help of 
 his underling historiographer. Let it suftice to 
 have showed it is a fit soil for praise to dwell 
 upon; and what dispraise may be set upon it is 
 either easily overcome, or transformed into just 
 commendation. So that since the excellences of 
 it may be so easily and so justly confirmed, and 
 the low creeping objections so soon trodden down ^ ; 
 it not being an art of lies, but of true doctrine ; 
 not of effeminateness, but of notable stirring of 
 courage ; not of abusing man's wit, but of strength- 
 
 ' Guards, trimmings or facings. 
 8 The Second Summary. 
 
A DEi^Ei^CE OF POESiE. 99 
 
 ening man's wit; not banished, but honoured by 
 Plato ; let us rather plant more laurels for to in- 
 garland the poets' heads (which honour of being 
 laureate, as besides them only triumphant captains 
 were, is a sufficient authority to show the price 
 they ought to be held in) than suffer the ill-favoured 
 breath of such wrong speakers once to blow upon 
 the clear springs of poesy. 
 
 ^ But since I have run so long a career in this 
 matter, methinks, before I give my pen a full stop, 
 it shall be but a little more lost time to inquire, 
 why England, the mother of excellent minds, should 
 be grown so hard a step-mother to poets, who cer- 
 tainly in wit ought to pass all others, since all only 
 proceeds from their wit, being, indeed, makers of 
 themselves, not takers of others. How can I but 
 exclaim, 
 
 *' Musa, mihi causas raemora, quo niimine laeso^ ?" 
 
 1 Causes of Defect in English Poetry, 
 
 2 From the invocation at the opening of Virgil's JSneid (line 
 12), *' Muse, bring to my mind the causes of these things : what 
 divinity was injured . . . that one famous for piety should suffer 
 thus." 
 
100 A DEFENCE OF POESIBJ. 
 
 Sweet poesy ! that hath anciently had kings, em- 
 perors, senators, great captains, such as, besides a 
 thousand others, David, Adrian, Sophocles, Ger- 
 manicus, not only to favour poets, but to be poets ; 
 and of our nearer times can present for her patrons, 
 a Robert, King of Sicily ; the great King Francis 
 of France ; King James of Scotland ; such car- 
 dinals as Bembus and Bibiena ; such famous 
 preachers and teachers as Beza and Melancthon; 
 so learned philosophers as Fracastorius and Scali- 
 ger ; so great orators as Pontanus and Muretus ; 
 so piercing wits as George Buchanan ; so grave 
 councillors as, besides many, but before all, that 
 Hospital/ of France, than whom, I think, that 
 realm never brought forth a more accomplished 
 judgment more firmly builded upon virtue ; I say 
 these, with numbers of others, not only to read 
 others^ poesies, but to poetise for others' reading : 
 
 1 The Chancellor, Michel de THopital, born in 1505, who 
 joined to his great political services (which included the keeping 
 of the Inquisition out of France, and long labour to repress 
 civil war) great skill in verse. He died in 1573. 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 101 
 
 that poesy, thus embraced in all other places, should 
 only find in our time a hard welcome in England, 
 I think the very earth laments it, and therefore 
 decks our soil with fewer laurels than it was accus- 
 tomed. For heretofore poets have in England also 
 flourished ; and, which is to be noted, even in those 
 times when the trumpet of Mars did sound loudest. 
 And now that an over-faint quietness should seem 
 to strew the house for poets, they are almost in as 
 good reputation as the mountebanks at Venice. 
 Truly, even that, as of the one side it giveth great 
 praise to poesy, which, like Yenus (but to better 
 purpose), had rather be troubled in the net with 
 Mars, than enjoy the homely quiet of Vulcan ; so 
 serveth it for a piece of a reason why they are less 
 grateful to idle England, which now can scarce 
 endure the pain of a pen. Upon this necessarily 
 followeth that base men with servile wits under- 
 take it, who think it enough if they can be re- 
 warded of the printer ; and so as Epaminondas is 
 said, with the honour of his virtue, to have made 
 an office by his exercising it. which before was 
 
^I02| A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 contemptible, to become highly respected ; so these 
 men, no more but setting their names to it, by 
 their own disgracefulness, disgrace the most grace- 
 ful poesy. For now, as if all the Muses were got 
 with child, to bring forth bastard poets, without 
 any commission, they do post over the banks of 
 Helicon, until they make their readers more weary 
 than post-horses ; while, in the meantime, they, 
 
 " Queis meliore luto finxit prsecordia Titan ^," 
 
 are better content to suppress the outflow ings of 
 their wit, than by publishing them to be accounted 
 knights of the same order. 
 
 But I that, before ever I durst aspire unto the 
 dignity, am admitted into the company of the 
 paper-blnrrers, do find the very true cause of our 
 wanting estimation is want of desert, taking upon 
 
 1 "Whose heart-strings the Titan (Prometheus) fastened with 
 a better clay. (Juvenal, Sat, xiv. 35). Dryden translated the 
 line, with its context — 
 
 "Some sons, indeed, some very few, we see 
 "Who keep themselves from this infection free, 
 "Whom gracious Heaven for nobler ends designed, 
 Their looks erected, and their clay refined." 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 103 
 
 US to be poets in despite of Pallas. Now, wherein 
 we want desert, were a thankworthy labour to 
 express. But if I knew, I should have mended 
 myself ; but as I never desired the title so have 
 I neglected the means to come by it ; only, over- 
 mastered by some thoughts, I yielded an inky 
 tribute unto them. Marry, they that delight in 
 poesy itself, should seek to know what they do, 
 and how they do, especially look themselves in an 
 unflattering glass of reason, if they be inclinable 
 unto it. 
 
 For poesy must not be drawn by the ears, it must 
 be gently led, or rather it must lead ; which was 
 partly the cause that made the ancient learned 
 affirm it was a divine, and no human skill, since 
 all other knowledges lie ready for any that have 
 strength of wit; a poet no industry can make, if 
 his own genius be not carried into it. And there- 
 fore is an old proverb, " Orator fit, poeta nascitur ^" 
 Yet confess I always, that as the fertilest ground 
 must be manured, so must the highest flying wit 
 1 The orator is made, the poet born. 
 
104 A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 
 
 have a Daedalus to guide him. That Dsedalus, 
 they say, both in this and in other, hath three 
 wings to bear itself up into the air of due commen- 
 dation ; that is art, imitation, and exercise. But 
 these, neither artificial rules, nor imitative patterns, 
 we much cumber ourselves withal. Exercise, in- 
 deed, we do, but that very forebackwardly ; for 
 where we should exercise to know, we exercise as 
 having known ; and so is our brain delivered of 
 much matter which never was begotten by know- 
 ledge. For there being two principal parts, matter 
 to be expressed by words, and words to express the 
 matter, in neither we nse art or imitation rightly. 
 Our matter is " quodlibet ^," indeed, although 
 wrongly, performing Ovid's verse, 
 
 " Quicquid conabor dicere, versus erit 2;»' 
 never marshalling it into any assured rank, that 
 
 1 What you will ; the first that comes. 
 
 2 '* Whatever I shall try to write will be verse." Sidney 
 quotes from memory, and adapts to his context, Tristium IV. 
 X. 26. 
 
 "Sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos, 
 Et quod temptabam dicere, versus erat." 
 
X DEFENCE OF POESIE. 105 
 
 almost the readers cannot tell where to find them- 
 selves. 
 
 Chaucer, undoubfcedly, did excellently in his 
 Troikis and Cressida ; of whom, truly, I know 
 not whether to marvel more, either that he in that 
 misty time could see so clearly, or that we in this 
 clear age go so stumblingly after him. Yet had 
 he great wants, fit to be forgiven in so reverend 
 antiquity, I account the Mirror of Magistrates 
 meetly furnished of beautiful parts. And in the 
 Earl of Surrey's Lyrics, many things tasting of a 
 noble birth, and worthy of a noble mind. The 
 " Shepherds' Kalendar " hath much poesy in his 
 eclogues, indeed, worthy the reading, if I be not 
 deceived. That same framing of his^ style to an 
 old rustic language, I dare not allow ; since neither 
 Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in Latin, nor Sannazaro 
 in Italian, did affect it. Besides these, I do not 
 remember to have seen but few (to speak boldly) 
 printed that have poetical sinews in them. For 
 
 1 His for "its" here as throughout; the word "its" not 
 being yet introduced into English writing. 
 
106 A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 
 
 proof whereof, let but most of the verses be put in 
 prose, and then ask the meaning, and it will be 
 found that one verse did but beget another, with- 
 out ordering at the first what should be at the last ; 
 which becomes a confused mass of words, with a 
 tinkling sound of rhyme, barely accompanied with 
 reason. 
 
 ^ Our tragedies and comedies, not without cause, 
 are cried out against, observing rules neither of 
 honest civility nor skilful poetry. Excepting 
 Gorboduc (again I say of those that I have 
 seen), which notwithstanding, as it is full of 
 stately speeches, and well-sounding phrases, climb- 
 ing to the height of Seneca his style, and as full 
 of notable morality, which it does most delightfully 
 teach, and so obtain the very end of poesy ; yet, in 
 
 1 Defects in the Drama. It should be remembered that this 
 was written when the English drama was but twenty years old, 
 and Shakespeare, aged about seventeen, had not yet come to 
 London. The strongest of Shakespeare's i)recursors had not 
 yet begun to write for the stage. Marlowe had not yet written ; 
 and the strength that was to come of the freedom of the English 
 drama had yet to be shown. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 107 
 
 truth, it is very defectuous in the circumstances, 
 which grieves me, because it might not remain as 
 an exact model of all tragedies. For it is faulty 
 both in place and time, the two necessary com- 
 panions of all corporal actions. For where the 
 stage should always represent ^but one place ; and 
 the uttermost time presupposed in it should be, 
 both by Aristotle's precept, and common reason, 
 but one day ; there is both many days and many 
 places inartificially imagined. 
 
 But if it be so in Gorbodiic, how much more in 
 all the rest ? where you shall have Asia of the one 
 side, and Afric of the other, and so many other 
 under kingdoms, that the player, when he comes 
 in, must ever begin with telling where he is,^ or 
 else the tale will not be conceived. Now shall you 
 have three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then 
 we must believe the stage to be a garden. By 
 and by, we hear news of shipwreck in the same 
 place, then we are to blame if we accept it not 
 for a rock. Upon the back of that comes out a 
 ^ There was no scenery on the Elizabethan stage. 
 
108 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 hideous monster with fire and smoke, and then the 
 miserable beholders are bound to take it for a 
 cave; while, in the meantime, two armies fly in, 
 represented with four swords and bucklers, and 
 then, what hard heart will not receive it for a 
 pitched field ] 
 
 Now of time they are much more liberal; for 
 ordinary it is, that two young princes fall in love ; 
 after many traverses she is got with child ; delivered 
 of a fair boy ; he is lost, groweth a man, falleth in 
 love, and is ready to get another child ; and all 
 this in two hours' space ; which, how absurd it is 
 in sense, even sense may imagine; and art hath 
 taught and all ancient examples justified, and at 
 this day the ordinary players in Italy will not err 
 in. Yet will some bring in an example of the 
 Eunuch in Terence, that containeth matter of two 
 days, yet far short of twenty years. True it is, 
 and so was it to be played in two days, and so 
 fitted to the time it set forth. And though Plautus 
 have in one place done amiss, let us hit it with 
 him, and not miss with him. But they will say, 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 109 
 
 How then shall we set forth a story which contains 
 both many places and many times ? And do they 
 not know, that a tragedy is tied to the laws of 
 poesy, and not of history ; not bound to follow 
 the story, but having liberty either to feign a quite 
 new matter, or to frame the history to the most 
 tragical convenience 1 Again, many things may be 
 told, which cannot be showed : if they know the 
 difference betwixt reporting and representing. As 
 for example, I may speak, though I am here, of 
 Peru, and in speech digress from that to the 
 description of Calicut ; but in action I cannot 
 represent it without Pacolet's horse. And so was 
 the manner the ancients took by some " Nuntius," ^ 
 to recount things done in former time, or other 
 place. 
 
 Lastly, if they will represent an history, they 
 must not, as Horace saith, begin " ab ovo," ^ but 
 they must come to the principal point of that one 
 action which they will represent. By example 
 this will be best expressed ; I have a story of 
 ^ Messenger. 
 
110 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 young Polydorus, delivered, for safety's sake, with 
 great riches, by his father Priamus to Polymnestor, 
 King of Thrace, in the Trojan war time. He, after 
 some years, hearing of the overthrow of Priamus, 
 for to make the treasure his own, murdereth the 
 child ; the body of the child is taken up ; Hecuba, 
 she, the same day, findeth a sleight to be revenged 
 most cruelly of the tyrant. Where, now, would 
 one of our tragedy-writers begin, but with the 
 delivery of the child 1 Then should he sail over 
 into Thrace, and so spend I know not how many 
 years, and travel numbers of places. But where 
 doth Euripides 1 Even with the finding of the 
 body ; leaving the rest to be told by the spirit of 
 Polydorus. This needs no farther to be enlarged ; 
 the dullest wit may conceive it. 
 
 But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their 
 plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, 
 mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter 
 so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and 
 shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with 
 neither decency nor discretion ; so as neither the 
 
A t)EFENCE OF POESIE. Ill 
 
 admiration and commiseration, nor the right sport- 
 fulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. 
 I know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is a 
 thing recounted with space of time, not represented 
 in one moment : and I know the ancients have one 
 or two examples of tragi-comedies as Plautus hath 
 Amphytrio. But, if we mark them well, we shall 
 find, that they never, or very daintily, match horn- 
 pipes and funerals. So falleth it out, that having 
 indeed no right comedy in that comical part of our 
 tragedy, we have nothing but scurrility, unworthy 
 of any chaste ears ; or some extreme show of dolt- 
 ishness, indeed fit to lift up a loud laughter, and 
 nothing else ; where the whole tract of a comedy 
 should be full of delight ; as the tragedy should be 
 still maintained in a well-raised admiration. 
 
 But our comedians think there is no delight 
 without laughter, which is very wrong ; for though 
 laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not 
 of delight, as though delight should be the cause of 
 laughter ; but well may one thing breed both to- 
 gether. Nay, in themselves, they have, as it were, 
 
112 A DEFENCE OF POESIB. 
 
 a kind of contrariety. For delight we scarcely do, 
 but in things that have a conveniency to ourselves, 
 or to the general nature. Laughter almost ever 
 cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves 
 and nature : delight hath a joy in it either per- 
 manent or present ; laughter hath only a scornful 
 tickling. For example : we are ravished with de- 
 light to see a fair woman, and yet are far from 
 being moved to laughter ; we laugh at deformed 
 creatures, wherein certainly we cannot delight ; we 
 delight in good chances ; we laugh at mischances ; 
 we delight to hear the happiness of our friends and 
 country, at which he were worthy to be laughed at 
 that would laugh : we shall, contrarily, sometimes 
 laugh to find a matter quite mistaken, and go down 
 the hill against the bias,^ in the mouth of some such 
 men, as for the respect of them, one shall be heartily 
 sorrow he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather 
 pained than delighted with laughter. Yet deny I 
 not, but that they may go well together ; for, as in 
 Alexander's picture well set out, we delight with- 
 1 Bias^ slope; French "biais." 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 113 
 
 out laughter, and in twenty mad antics we laugh 
 without delight : so in Hercules, painted with his 
 great beard and furious countenance, in a woman's 
 attire, spinning at Omphale's commandment, it 
 breeds both delight and laughter ; for the represent- 
 ing of so strange a power in love procures de- 
 light, and the scornfulness of the action stirreth 
 laughter. 
 
 But I speak to this purpose, that all the end of 
 the comical part be not upon such scornful matters 
 as stir laughter only, but mix with it that delightful 
 teaching which is the end of poesy. And the great 
 fault, even in that point of laughter, and forbidden 
 plainly by Aristotle, is, that they stir laughter in 
 sinful things, which are rather execrable than 
 ridiculous; or in miserable, which are rather to 
 be pitied than scorned. For what is it to make 
 folks gape at a wretched beggar, and a beggarly 
 clown ; or against the law of hospitality, to jest 
 at strangers, because they speak not English so 
 well as we do ? what do we learn, since it is 
 certain, 
 
 19— H 
 
114 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 * Nil habet infelix pauperatas durius in se, 
 Quam quod ridiculos, homines facit.*' ^ 
 
 But rather a busy loving courtier, and a heartless 
 threatening Thraso ; a self- wise seeming school- 
 master ; a wry-transformed traveller : these, if we 
 saw walk in stage names, which we play naturally, 
 therein were delightful laughter, and teaching de- 
 lightfulness : as in the other, the tragedies of 
 Buchanan ^ do justly bring forth a divine admira- 
 tion. 
 
 But I have lavished out too many words of this 
 play matter ; I do it, because, as they are excelling 
 parts of poesy, so is there none so much used in 
 England, and none can be more pitifully abused ; 
 which, like an unmannerly daughter, showing a bad 
 
 1 Juvenal, Sat. iii., lines 152 — 3. Which Samuel Johnson 
 finely paraphrased in his *' London : " 
 
 '* Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, 
 Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest." 
 
 2 George Buchanan (who died in 1582, aged seventy-six) had 
 written in earlier life four Latin tragedies, when Professor of 
 Humanities at Bordeaux, with Montaigne in his class. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 115 
 
 education, causeth her mother Poesy^s honesty to 
 be called in question. 
 
 ^ Other sorts of poetry, almost, have we none, 
 but that lyrical kind of songs and sonnets, which, 
 if the Lord gave us so good minds, how well it 
 might be employed, and with how heavenly fruits, 
 both private and public, in singing the praises of 
 the immortal beauty, the immortal goodness of 
 that God, who giveth us hands to write, and 
 wits to conceive; of which we might well want 
 words, but never matter ; of which we could turn 
 our eyes to nothing, but we should ever have new 
 budding occasions. 
 
 But, truly, many of such writings as come under 
 the banner of unresistible love, if I were a mistress, 
 would never persuade me they were in love ; so 
 coldly they apply fiery speeches, as men that had 
 rather read lover's writings, and so caught up 
 certain swelling phrases, which hang together like 
 a man that once told me, " the wind was at north- 
 west and by south," because he would be sure to 
 1 Defects in Lyric Poetry, 
 
116 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 name winds enough ; than that, in truth, they feel 
 those passions, which easily, as I think, may be 
 bewrayed by the same forcibleness, or " energia " 
 (as the Greeks call it), of the writer. But let this 
 be a sufficient, though short note, that we miss the 
 right use of the material point of poesy. 
 
 ^Now for the outside of it, which is words, or 
 (as I may term it) diction, it is even well worse ; 
 so is that honey-flowing matron eloquence, ap- 
 parelled, or rather disguised, in a courtesan-like 
 painted affectation. One time with so far-fetched 
 words, that many seem monsters, but most seem 
 strangers to any poor Englishman : another time 
 with coursing of a letter, as if they were bound to 
 follow the method of a dictionary : another time 
 with figures and flowers, extremely winter-starved. 
 
 But I would this fault were only peculiar to 
 versifiers, and had not as large possession among 
 
 1 Defects in Diction. This being wiitten only a year or two 
 after the publication of '* Euphues," represents that style of 
 the day which was not created but represented by the book 
 from which it took the name of " Euphuism." 
 
A DEFENCE OP P0E81E. 117 
 
 prose printers : and, which is to be marvelled, 
 among many scholars, and, which is to be pitied, 
 among some preachers. Truly, I could wish (if at 
 least I might be so bold to wish, in a thing beyond 
 the reach of my capacity) the diligent imitators 
 of Tully and Demosthenes, most worthy to be 
 imitated, did not so much keep Nizolian paper- 
 books'^ of their figures and phrases, as by attentive 
 translation, as it were, devour them whole, and 
 make them wholly theirs. For now they cast 
 sugar and spice upon every dish that is served 
 at the table : like those Indians, not content to 
 wear ear-rings at the fit and natural place of the 
 ears, but they will thrust jewels through their nose 
 and lips, because they will be sure to be fine. 
 
 1 Nizolian paper-books are commonplace books of quotable 
 passages, so called because an Italian grammarian, Marius 
 Nizolius, born at Bersello in the fifteenth century, and one of 
 the scholars of the Renaissance in the sixteenth, was one of 
 the first producers of such volumes. His contribution was an 
 alphabetical folio dictionary of phrases from Cicero : " The- 
 saurus Ciceronianus, sive Apparatus Linguae Latinae e scriptia 
 TuUii Ciceronis collectus." 
 
118 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 Tully, when he was to drive out Catiline, as it 
 were with a thunderbolt of eloquence, often useth 
 the figure of repetition, as " vivit et vincit, imo in 
 senatum venit, imo in senatum venit," &c.i In- 
 deed, inflamed with a well-grounded rage, he would 
 have his words, as it were, double out of his mouth ; 
 and so do that artificially which we see men in 
 choler do naturally. And we, having noted the 
 grace of those words, hale them in sometimes to 
 a familiar epistle, when it were too much choler to 
 be choleric. 
 
 How well, store of " similiter cadences " doth 
 sound with the gravity of the pulpit, I would but 
 invoke Demosthenes' soul to tell, who with a rare 
 daintiness useth them. Truly, they have made me 
 think of the sophister, that with too much subtlety 
 would prove two eggs three, and though he may be 
 counted a sophister, had none for his labour. So 
 these men bringing in such a kind of eloquence, 
 well may they obtain an opinion of a seeming fine- 
 
 1 " He lives and wins, nay, comes to the Senate, nay, comes 
 to the Senate," &c. 
 
A. DEFENCE OF POESIE. 119 
 
 ness, but persuade few, which should be the end of 
 their fineness. 
 
 Now for similitudes in certain printed dis- 
 courses, I think all herbalists, all stories of beasts, 
 fowls, and fishes are rifled up, that they may come 
 in multitudes to wait upon any of our conceits, 
 which certainly is as absurd a surfeit to the ears 
 as is possible. For the force of a similitude not 
 being to pro\^ anything to a contrary disputer, 
 but only to explain to a willing hearer : when that 
 is done, the rest is a most tedious prattling, rather 
 overswaying the memory from the purpose where- 
 to they were applied, than any whit informing the 
 judgment, already either satisfied, or by similitudes 
 not to be satisfied. 
 
 For my part, I do not doubt, when Antonius 
 and Crassus, the great forefathers of Cicero in 
 eloquence, the one (as Cicero testifieth of them) 
 pretended not to know art, the other not to set 
 by it, because with a plain sensibleness they might 
 win credit of popular ears, which credit is the 
 nearest step to persuasion (which persuasion is the 
 
120 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 chief mark of oratory) ; I do not doubt, I say, but 
 that they used these knacks very sparingly ; which 
 who doth generally use, any man may see, doth 
 dance to his own music ; and so to be noted by 
 the audience, more careful to speak curiously than 
 truly. Undoubtedly (at least to my opinion un- 
 doubtedly) I have found in divers small-learned 
 courtiers a more sound style than in some pro- 
 fessors of learning ; of which I can guess no other 
 cause, but that the courtier following that which 
 by practice he findeth fittest to nature, therein 
 (though he know it not) doth according to art, 
 though not by art : where the other, using art to 
 show art, and not hide art (as in these cases he 
 should do), flietli from nature, and indeed abuseth 
 art. 
 
 But what ! methinks I deserve to be pounded^ 
 for straying from poetry to oratory : but both have 
 such an affinity in the wordish considerations, that 
 I think this digression will make my meaning 
 receive the fuller understanding : which is not to 
 1 Pounded. Put in the pound, when found astray. 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESIE. I2l 
 
 take upon me to teach poets how they should do, 
 but only finding myself sick among the rest^ to 
 show some one or two spots of the common in- 
 fection grown among the most part of writers ; 
 that, acknowledging ourselves somewhat awry, we 
 may bend to the right use both of matter and 
 manner : whereto our language giveth us great 
 occasion, being, indeed, capable of any excellent 
 exercising of it.^ I know some will say, it is a 
 mingled language : and why not so much the 
 better, taking the best of both the other ? Another 
 will say, it wanteth grammar. Nay, truly, it hath 
 that praise, that it wants not grammar; for 
 grammar it might have, but needs it not ; being 
 so easy in itself, and so void of those cumbersome 
 differences of cases, genders, moods, and tenses ; 
 which, I think, was a piece of the tower of Baby- 
 lon's curse, that a man should be put to school to 
 learn his mother tongue. But for the uttering 
 sweetly and properly the conceit of the mind, 
 which is the end of speech, that hath it equally 
 1 Capacities of the English Language* 
 
122 A dej^ence of I^OteSIlS. 
 
 with any other tongue in the world, and is par- 
 ticularly happy in compositions of two or three 
 words together, near the Greek, far beyond the 
 Latin ; which is one of the greatest beauties can 
 be in a language. 
 
 iNow, of versifying there are two sorts, the one 
 ancient, the other modern; the ancient marked 
 the quantity of each syllable, and according to 
 that framed his verse ; the modem, observing only 
 number, with some regard of the accent, the chief 
 life of it standeth in that like sounding of the 
 words, which we call rhyme. Whether of these 
 be the more excellent, would bear many speeches ; 
 the ancient, no doubt more fit for music, both 
 words and time observing quantity ; and more 
 fit lively to express divers passions, by the low or 
 lofty sound of the well-weighed syllable. The 
 latter, likewise, with his rhyme striketh a certain 
 music to the ear ; and, in fine, since it doth delight, 
 though by another way, it obtaineth the same 
 purpose ; there being in either, sweetness, and 
 J 3Ietre and Rhyme, 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 123 
 
 wanting in neither, majesty. Tinily the English, 
 before any vulgar language I know, is fit for both 
 sorts ; for, for the ancient, the Italian is so full of 
 vowels, that it must ever be cumbered with elisions. 
 The Dutch so, of the other side, with consonants, 
 that they cannot yield the sweet sliding fit for a 
 verse. The French, in his whole language, hath 
 not one word that hath his accent in the last 
 syllable, saving two, called antepenultima ; and 
 little more hath the Spanish, and therefore very 
 gracelessly may they use dactiles. The English is 
 subject to none of these defects. 
 
 Now for rhyme, though we do not observe 
 quantity, we observe the accent very precisely, 
 which other languages either cannot do, or will 
 not do so absolutely. That " caesura," or breathing- 
 place, in the midst of the verse, neither Italian 
 nor Spanish have, the French and we never almost 
 fail of. Lastly, even the very rhyme itself the 
 Italian cannot put in the last syllable, by the 
 French named the masculine rhyme, but still in 
 the next to the last, which the French call the 
 
124 A DEfi'ENCE OB' POEStE. 
 
 female ; or the next before that, which the Italian 
 calls "sdrucciola :" the example of the former is, 
 " buono," " suono ; " of the sdrucciola is, " femina," 
 "semina." 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 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 learn- 
 ing; 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 
 * Last Summary and playful peroration. 
 
A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 125 
 
 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 
 y^ou an honest man, than the reading of Virgil; 
 to believe, with Clauserus, the translator of Cor- 
 nutus, 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. 
 Lastly, to believe themselves, when they tell you 
 they will make you immortal by their verses. 
 
126 A DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 Thus doing, your names shall flourish in the 
 printers^ shops : thus doing, you shall be of kin to 
 many a poetical preface : thus doing, you shall be 
 most fair, most rich, most wise, most all : you 
 shall dwell upon superlatives : thus doing, though 
 you be " Libertino patre natus," you shall suddenly 
 grow " Herculea proles," 
 
 " Si quid mea Carmina possunt : " 
 
 thus doing, your soul shall be placed with Dante's 
 Beatrix, or VirgiFs Anchisis. 
 
 But if (fie of such a but !) you be born so near 
 the dull-making cataract of Nilus, that you cannot 
 hear the planet-like music of poetry ; if you have 
 so earth-creeping a mind, that it cannot lift itself 
 up to look to the sky of poetry, or rather, by a 
 certain rustical disdain, will become such a Mome, 
 as to be a Momus of poetry ; then, though I will 
 not wish unto you the ass's ears of Midas, nor to 
 be driven by a poet's verses, as Bubonax was, to 
 hang himself ; nor to be rhymed to death, as is 
 said to be done in Ireland ; yet thus much curse 
 
A DEFENCE OP POESIE. 127 
 
 I must send you in the behalf of all poets ; that 
 while you live, you live in love, and never get 
 favour, for lacking skill of a sonnet; and when 
 you die, your memory die from the earth for want 
 of an epitaph. 
 
POEMS 
 
 TWO PASTORALS, 
 
 Made iy Sir Philip Sidney ^ upon his meeting with his two 
 worthy friends and fellow poets, Sir Edward Dyer 
 and M. Fulke Greville, 
 
 Join mates in mirth to me, 
 
 Grant pleasure to our meeting ; 
 Let Pan, our good god, see 
 How grateful is our greeting. 
 
 Join hearts and hands, so let it h% 
 Make but one mind in bodies three. 
 
 Ye hymns and singing skill 
 
 Of god Apollo^s giving, 
 Be pressed our reeds to fill 
 
 With sound of music living. 
 
 Join hearts and hands, so let it be, 
 
 Make but one mind in bodies three. 
 19-1 
 
130 POEMS. 
 
 Sweet Orpheus' harp, whose sound 
 
 The stedfast mountains moved, 
 Let there thy skill abound, 
 To join sweet friends beloved. 
 
 Join hearts and hands, so let it be, 
 Make but one mind in bodies three 
 
 My two and I be met, 
 
 A happy blessed trinity, 
 As three more jointly set 
 In firmest band of unity. 
 
 Join hearts and hands, so let it be, 
 Make but one mind in bodies three. 
 
 Welcome my two to me, 
 
 The number best beloved, 
 Within my heart you be 
 In friendship unremoved. 
 
 Join hearts and hands, so let it be, 
 Make but one mind in bodies threa 
 
 Give leave your flocks to range. 
 Let us the while be playing ; 
 
POEMS. 131 
 
 Within the elmy grange, 
 
 Your flocks will not be straying. 
 Join hearts and hands, so let it be, 
 Make but one mind in bodies threa 
 
 Cause all the mirth you can. 
 
 Since I am now come hither, 
 Who never joy, but when 
 T am with you together. 
 
 Join hearts and hands, so let it be, 
 Make but one mind in bodies three. 
 
 Like lovers do their love, 
 So joy I in you seeing : 
 Let nothing me remove 
 
 From always with you being. 
 
 Join hearts and hands, so let it be, 
 Make but one mind in bodies three. 
 
 And as the turtle dove 
 
 To mate with whom he liveth, 
 Such comfort fervent love 
 
 Of you to my heart giveth. 
 
132 POEMS. 
 
 Join hearts and hands, so let it be, 
 Make but one mind in bodies three. 
 
 Now joinM be our hands, 
 
 Let them be ne'er asunder, 
 But link'd in binding bands 
 By metamorphosed wonder. 
 
 So should our severed bodies three 
 As one for ever joined be. 
 
 DISPRAISE OF A COURTLY LIFE. 
 
 Walking in bright Phoebus' blaze, 
 
 Where with heat oppressed I was, 
 
 I got to a shady wood. 
 
 Where green leaves did newly bud ; 
 
 And of grass was plenty dwelling, 
 
 Decked with pied flowers sweetly smelling. 
 
 In this wood a man I met 
 On lamenting wholly set ; 
 
POEMS, 133 
 
 Ruing change of wonted state, 
 Whence he was transformed late, 
 Once to shepherds' God retaining, 
 Now in servile court remaining. 
 
 There he wandering malecontent, 
 Up and down perplexed went. 
 Daring not to tell to me 
 Spake unto a senseless tree, 
 One among the rest electing, 
 These same words, or this affecting : 
 
 " My old mates I grieve to see 
 Void of me in field to be. 
 Where we once our lovely sheep 
 Lovingly like friends did keep ; 
 Oft each other's friendship proving, 
 Never striving, but in loving. 
 
 " But may love abiding be 
 
 In poor shepherds' base degree 1 
 
 It belongs to such alone 
 
 To whom art of love is known ; 
 
134 POEMS. 
 
 Seely shephei-ds are not witting 
 What in art of love is fitting. 
 
 " Nay, what need the art to those 
 To whom we our love disclose 1 
 It is to be us^d then, 
 When we do but flatter men : 
 Friendship true, in heart assured, 
 Is by Nature's gifts procured. 
 
 " Therefore shepherds, wanting skill, 
 Can Love's duties best fulfil ; 
 Since they know not how to feign, 
 Nor with love to cloak disdain. 
 Like the wiser sort, whose learning 
 Hides their inward will of harming. 
 
 " Well was I, while under shade 
 Oaten reeds me music made. 
 Striving with my mates in song ; 
 Mixing mirth our songs among. 
 Greater was the shepherd's treasure 
 Than this false, fine, courtly pleasure. 
 
POEMS. 135 
 
 " Where how many creatures be, 
 So many puffed in mind I see ; 
 Like to Juno's birds of pride, 
 Scarce each other can abide : 
 Friends like to black swans appearing. 
 Sooner these than those in hearing. 
 
 " Therefore, Pan, if thou may'st be 
 Made to listen unto me, 
 Grant, I say, if seely man 
 May make treaty to god Pan, 
 That I, without thy denying. 
 May be still to thee relying. 
 
 " Only for my two loves' 
 
 In whose love I pleasure take ; 
 
 Only two do me delight 
 
 With their ever-pleasing sight ; 
 
 Of all men to thee retaining, 
 
 Grant me with those two remaining. 
 
 " So shall I to thee always 
 
 With my reeds sound mighty praise : 
 
136 POEMS. 
 
 And first lamb that shall befall, 
 Yearly deck thine altar shall, 
 If it please thee to be reflected, 
 And I from thee not rejected." 
 
 So I left him in that place, 
 Taking pity on his case ; 
 Learning this among the rest, 
 That the mean estate is best ; 
 Better filled with contenting, 
 Void of wishing and repenting. 
 
 DIRGE. 
 
 Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be 
 
 spread. 
 For Love is dead : 
 
 All Love is dead, infected 
 With plague of deep disdain : 
 
 Worth, as nought worth, rejected, 
 And faith fair scorn doth gain. 
 
POEMS. 137 
 
 From so ungrateful fancy ; 
 From such a female frenzy ; 
 From them that use men thus, 
 Good Lord, deliver us 
 
 Weep, neighbours, weep, do you not hear it 
 
 said 
 That Love is dead : 
 
 His death-bed, peacock's folly 
 His winding-sheet is shame ; 
 
 His will, false- seeming holy. 
 His sole executor, blame. 
 
 From so ungrateful fancy ; 
 
 From such a female frenzy ; 
 
 From them that use men thus, 
 
 Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 Let dirge be sung, and trentals rightly read, 
 For Love is dead : 
 
 Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth 
 My mistress* marble heart ; 
 
 Which epitaph containeth, 
 " Her* eyes were once his dart.'' 
 
138 POEMS. 
 
 From so ungrateful fancy ; 
 From such a female frenzy ; 
 From them that use men thus, 
 Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
 Alas ! I lie : rage hath this error bred ; 
 Love is not dead, 
 
 Love is not dead, but sleepeth 
 In her unmatched mind : 
 
 Where she his counsel keepet!h 
 Till due deserts she find. 
 
 Therefore from so vile fancy, 
 
 To call such wit a frenzy : 
 
 Who Love can temper thus, 
 
 Good Lord, deliver us. 
 
POEMS. 139 
 
 STANZAS TO LOVE. 
 
 Ah, poor Love, why dost thou live, 
 
 Thus to see thy service lost ; 
 If she will no comfort give, 
 
 Make an end, yield up the ghost ! 
 
 That she may, at length, approve 
 
 That she hardly long believed, 
 That the heart will die for love 
 
 That is not in time relieved. 
 
 Oh, that ever I was bom 
 
 Service so to be refused ; 
 Faithful love to be forborn ! 
 
 Never love was so abused. 
 
 But^ sweet Love, be still awhile ; 
 
 She that hurt thee, Love, may heal thee ; 
 Sweet ! I see within her smile 
 
 More than reason can reveal thee. 
 
 For, though she be rich and fair, 
 Yet she is both wise and kind. 
 
140 POEMS. 
 
 And, therefore, do thou not despair 
 But thy faith may fancy find. 
 
 Yet, although she be a queen 
 * That may such a snake despise, 
 Yet, with silence all unseen. 
 Run, and hide thee in her eyes • 
 
 Where if she will let thee die, 
 Yet at latest gasp of breath, 
 
 Say that in a lady's eye 
 
 Love both took his life and death. 
 
 A REMEDY FOR LOVE. 
 
 Philoclea and Pamela sweet. 
 
 By chance, in one great house did meet ; 
 
 And meeting, did so join in heart. 
 
 That th' one from th' other could not part : 
 
 And who indeed (not made of stones) 
 
 Would separate such lovely ones ? 
 
POEMS. 141 
 
 The one is beautiful, and fair 
 As orient pearls and rubies are ; 
 And sweet as, after gentle showers, 
 The breath is of some thousand flowers : 
 For due proportion, such an air 
 Circles the other, and so fair, 
 That it her brownness beautifies, 
 And doth enchant the wisest eyes. 
 
 Have you not seen, on some great day, 
 Two goodly horses, white and bay. 
 Which were so beauteous in their pride, 
 You knew not which to choose or ride ] 
 Such are these two ; you scarce can tell, 
 Which is the daintier bonny belle ; 
 And they are such, as, by my troth, 
 I had been sick with love of both, 
 And might have sadly said, * Good-night 
 Discretion and good fortune quite ; ' 
 But that young Cupid, my old master. 
 Presented me a sovereign plaster : 
 Mopsa ! ev'n Mopsa ! (precious pet) 
 
142 
 
 Whose lips of marble, teeth of jet, 
 
 Are spells and charms of strong defence, 
 
 To conjure down concupiscence. 
 
 How oft have I been reft of sense, 
 By gazing on their excellence, 
 But meeting Mopsa in my way, 
 And looking on her face of clay. 
 Been healed, and cured, and made as sound, 
 As though I ne'er had had a wound ? 
 And when in tables of my heart, 
 Love wrought such things as bred my smart, 
 Mopsa would come, with face of clout, 
 And in an instant wipe them out. 
 And when their faces made me sick, 
 Mopsa would come, with face of brick, 
 A little heated in the fire. 
 And break the neck of my desira 
 Now from their face I turn mine eyes. 
 But (cruel panthers !) they surprise 
 Me with their breath, that incense sweet, 
 Which only for the gods is meet> 
 
POEMS 143 
 
 And jointly from them doth respire, 
 Like both the Indies set on fire : 
 
 Which so o'ercomes man's ravished sense, 
 That souls, to follow it, fly hence. 
 No such-like smell you if you range 
 To th' Stocks, or CornhiU's square Ex- 
 change ; 
 There stood I still as any stocjc, 
 Till Mopsa, with her puddle dock. 
 Her compound or electuary. 
 Made of old ling and young canary, 
 Bloat-herring, cheese, and voided physic. 
 Being somewhat troubled with a phthisic. 
 Did cough, and fetch a sigh so deep, 
 As did her very bottom sweep : 
 Whereby to all she did impart. 
 How love lay rankling at her heart : 
 Which, when I smelt, desire was slain. 
 And they breathed forth perfumes in vain. 
 Their angel voice surprised me now ; 
 But Mopsa, her Too- whit, Too-wboo^ 
 
144 
 
 Descending through her oboe nose. 
 Did that distemper soon compose. 
 
 And, therefore, O thou precious owl, 
 The wise Minerva's only fowl , 
 Wliat, at thy shrine, shall I devise 
 To offer up a sacrifice ] 
 Hang ^sculapius, and Apollo, 
 And Ovid, with his precious shallow. 
 Mopsa is love's best medicine, 
 True water to a lover's wine. 
 Nay, she's the yellow antidote, 
 Both bred and bom to cut Love's throat ; 
 Be but my second, and stand by, 
 Mopsa, and I'll them both defy ; 
 And all else of those gallant races, 
 Who wear infection in their faces , 
 For thy face (that Medusa's shield 1) 
 Will bring me safe out of the field. 
 
POEMS. 145 
 
 VERSES. 
 
 To the tune of the S])mnsh sonQy " Si tu senora no 
 dueles de mV* 
 
 O PAIR ! sweet ! when I do look on thee, 
 
 In whom all joys so well agree, 
 Heart and soul do sing in me. 
 
 This you hear is not my tongue, 
 Which once said what I conceived ; 
 For it was of use bereaved, 
 
 With a cruel answer stung. 
 No ! though tongue to roof be cleaved, 
 
 Fearing lest he chastised be, 
 
 Heart and soul do sing in me. 
 
 O fair ! O sweet ! when I do look on thee, 
 In whom all joys so well agree. 
 Just accord all music makes ; 
 
 In thee just accord excelleth, 
 
 Where each part in such peace dwelleth, 
 One of other beauty takes. 
 
 Since then truth to all minds telle th, 
 19-J 
 
146 POEMS. 
 
 That in thee lives harmony, 
 Heart and soul do sing in me. 
 
 O fair ! O sweet ! when I do look on tJiee, 
 In whom all joys so well agree, 
 They that heaven have known do say, 
 
 That whoso that grace obtaineth, 
 
 To see what fair sight there reigneth. 
 Forced are to sing alway 
 
 So then since that heaven remaineth 
 In thy face, I plainly see, 
 Heart and soul do sing in me. 
 
 O fair ! O sweet ! when I do look on thee, 
 In whom all joys so well agree. 
 Sweet, think not I am at ease, 
 
 For because my chief part singeth ; 
 
 This song from death's sorrow springeth 
 As to swan in last disease : 
 
 For no dumbness, nor death, bringeth 
 Stay to true love's melody : 
 Heart and soul do sing in me. 
 
POEMS. 147 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 From HoracCy Booh II. Ode X., beginning " Rectius 
 viveSy Liciniy'' Sfc. 
 
 You better sure shall live, not evermore 
 
 Trying high seas ; nor, while sea's rage you flee, 
 Pressing too much upon ill-harboured shore. 
 
 The golden mean who loves, lives safely free 
 From filth of foreworn house, and quiet lives, 
 Released from court, where envy needs must be. 
 
 The wind most oft the hugest pine tree grieves : 
 
 The stately towers come down with greater fall : 
 The highest hills the bolt of thunder cleaves. 
 
 Evil haps do fill with hope, good haps appall 
 
 With fear of change, the courage well prepared : 
 
 Foul winters, as they come, away they shall. 
 
 Though present times, and past, with evils be 
 snared, 
 They shall not last : with cithern silent Muse, 
 Apollo wakes, and bow hath sometime spared. 
 
148 POEMS. 
 
 In hard estate, with stout shows, valour use, 
 The same man still, in whom wisdom prevails ; 
 In too full wind draw in thy swelling sails. 
 
 A SONNET BY SIR EDWAED DYER 
 
 Prometheus, when first from heaven high 
 
 He brought down fire, till then on earth not 
 seen; 
 
 Fond of delight, a satyr, standing by, 
 Gave it a kiss, as it like sweet had been. 
 
 Feeling forthwith the other burning power, 
 
 Wood with the smart, with shouts and shrieking 
 shrill, 
 
 He sought his ease in river, field, and bower ; 
 But, for the time, his grief went with him still. 
 
 So silly I, with that unwonted sight. 
 In human shape an angel from above^ 
 
 Feeding mine eyes, th' impression there did light ; 
 That since I run and rest as pleaseth love : 
 
POEMS. 149 
 
 The difference is, the satyr's lips, my heart, 
 He for a while, I evermore, have smart. 
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S SONNET IN 
 REPLY. 
 
 A SATYR once did run away for dread, 
 With sound of horn which he himself did blow : 
 
 Fearing and feared, thus from himself he fled, 
 Deeming strange evil in that he did not know. 
 
 Such causeless fears when coward minds do take, 
 It makes them fly that which they fain would have; 
 
 A.S this poor beast, who did his rest forsake, 
 Thinking not why, but how, himself to save. 
 
 Ev'n thus might I, for doubts which I conceive 
 Of mine own words, my own good hap betray ; 
 
 And thus might I, for fear of may be, leave 
 The sweet pursuit of my desired prey. 
 
 Better like I thy satyr, dearest Dyer, 
 
 Who burnt his lips to kiss f^<ir shining fir^ 
 
150 POEMS. 
 
 MUST LOVE LAMENT? 
 
 My mistress lowers, and saith I do not love : 
 I do protest, and seek with service due, 
 
 In humble mind, a constant faith to prove ; 
 
 But for all this, I cannot her remove 
 
 From deep vain thought that I may not be true. 
 
 If oaths might serve, ev'n by the Stygian lake, 
 Which poets say the gods themselves do fear, 
 I never did my vowed word forsake : 
 For why should I, whom free choice slave doth 
 make. 
 Else- what in face, than in my fancy bear 1 
 
 My Muse, therefore, for only thou canst tell. 
 Tell me the cause of this my causeless woe 1 
 
 Tell, how ill thought disgraced my doing well ? 
 
 Tell, how my joys and hopes thus foully fell 
 To so low ebb that wonted were to flow ] 
 
 O this it is, the knotted straw is found ; 
 In tender hearts, small things engender hate ; 
 
POEMS. 151 
 
 A horse^s worth laid waste the Trojan ground ; 
 A three-foot stool in Greece made trumpets 
 sound ; 
 An ass's shade e'er now hath bred debate. 
 
 If Greeks themselves were moved witli so small 
 cause, 
 
 To twist those broils, which hardly would untwine : 
 Should ladies fair be tied to such hard laws, 
 As in tlieir moods to take a ling'ring pause ] 
 
 I would it not, their metal is too fine. 
 
 My hand doth not bear witness with my heart, 
 She saith, because I make no woeful lays, 
 To paint my living death and endless smart : 
 And so, for one that felt god Cupid's dart. 
 She thinks I lead and live too merry days. 
 
 Are poets then the only lovers true, 
 Whose hearts are set on measuring a verse ? 
 Who think themselves well blest, if they renew 
 Some good old dump that Chaucer's mistress 
 knew; 
 And use but you for matters to rehearse. 
 
152 POEMS. 
 
 Then, good Apollo, do away thy bow : 
 Take harp and sing in this our versing time, 
 And in my brain some sacred humour flow. 
 That all the earth my woes, sighs, tears may 
 know; 
 And see you not that 1 fall now to rhyme. 
 
 As for my mirth, how could I but be glad. 
 Whilst that methought I justly made my boast 
 
 That only I the only mistress had ? 
 
 But now, if e*er my face with joy be clad. 
 Think Hannibal did laugh when Carthage lost. 
 
 Sweet lady, as for those whose sullen cheer, 
 Compared to me, made me in lightness sound ; 
 Who, stoic-like, in cloudy hue appear ; 
 Who silence force to make their words more 
 dear ; 
 Whose eyes seem chaste, because they look on 
 ground : 
 
 Believe them not, for physic true doth find, 
 Choler adust is joyed in woman-kind. 
 
POEMS. 153 
 
 A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO 
 SHEPHERDS. 
 
 Uttered in a Pastoral Show at Wilton, 
 
 WilL Dick, since we cannot dance, come, let a 
 
 cheerful voice 
 Show that we do not grudge at all when 
 
 others do rejoice. 
 Dick. Ah Will, though I grudge not, I count it 
 
 feeble glee. 
 With sight made dim with daily tears 
 
 another's sport to see. 
 Whoever lambkins Tsaw, yet lambkins love 
 
 to play, 
 To play when that their lov^d dams are 
 
 stolen or gone astray ? 
 If this in them be true, as true in men 
 
 think I, 
 A lustless song forsooth thinks he that hath 
 
 more lust to cry. 
 WilL A time there is for all, my mother often says, 
 
154 POEMS. 
 
 When she, with skirts tucked very high, 
 with girls at football plays. 
 
 Wheji thou hast mind to weep, seek out 
 some smoky room : 
 
 ^low let those lightsome sights we see thy 
 darkness overcome. 
 Dick. What joy the joyful sun gives unto bleared 
 
 That comfort in these sports you like, my 
 mind his comfort tries. 
 Will, What? Is thy bagpipe broke, or are thy 
 lambs miswent ; 
 Thy wallet or thy tar-box lost ; or thy new 
 raiment rent 1 
 Dick. I would it were but thus, for thus it were 
 
 too well. 
 Will. Thou see'st my ears do itch at it : good Dick 
 
 thy sorrow tell. 
 Dick. Hear then, and learn to sigh : a mistress I 
 do serve, 
 Whose wages make me beg the more, who 
 feeds me till I starve ; 
 
POEMS. 155 
 
 Whose livery is such, as most I freeze ap- 
 parelled most, 
 A.nd looks so near unto my cure, that I 
 must needs be lost. 
 
 Will. What? These are riddles sure : art thou 
 then bound to her ] 
 
 Dick. Bound as I neither power have, nor would 
 have power, to stir. 
 
 Will. Who bound thee? 
 
 Dick. Love, my lord. 
 
 Will. What witnesses thereto 1 
 
 Dick. Faith in myself, and Worth in her, which 
 no proof can undo. 
 
 Will. What seal? 
 
 Dick. My heart deep graven. 
 
 Will. Who made the band so fast ? 
 
 Dick. Wonder that, by two so black eyes the glit- 
 tering stars be past. 
 
 Will. What keepeth safe thy band ? 
 
 Dick. Remembrance is the chest 
 
 Lock'd fast with knowing that she is of 
 worldly things the best. 
 
156 POEMS. 
 
 Will. Thou late of wages plain'dst : what wages 
 
 may'st thou have 1 
 Dick. Her heavenly looks, wliicli more and more 
 
 do give me cause to crave. 
 Will. If wages make you want, what food is that 
 
 she gives ? 
 Bick. Tear's drink, sorrow's meat, wherewith not 
 
 I, but in me my death lives. 
 Will. What living get you then 1 
 Dick. Disdain ; but just disdain : 
 
 So have I cause myself to plain, but no 
 
 cause to complain. 
 Will. What care takes she for thee ] 
 Dick. Her care is to prevent 
 
 My freedom, with show of her beams, with 
 
 virtue, my content. 
 Will. God shield us from such dames ! If so our 
 
 dames be sped. 
 The shepherds will grow lean I trow, their 
 
 sheep will be ill-fed. 
 But Dick, my counsel mark : run from the 
 
 place of woe ; 
 
POEMS. 157 
 
 Tlie arrow being shot from far doth give the 
 smaller blow. 
 Dick, Good Will, I cannot take thy good advice ; 
 before 
 That foxes leave to steal, they find they die 
 therefore. 
 Will. Then, Dick, let us go hence lest we great 
 folks annoy : 
 For nothing can more tedious be than plaint 
 in time of joy. 
 Dick, Oh hence 1 O cruel word ! which even dogs 
 do hate : 
 But hence, even hence, I must needs go j 
 such is my dogged fate. 
 
 -^ 
 
158 POEMS. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 ■ To the tune of " Wilhelmus van Kassau^^"* ^e. 
 Who hath his fancy pleased, 
 
 With fruits of happy sight, 
 Let here his eyes be raised 
 
 On Nature's sweetest light ; 
 A light which doth dissever, 
 
 And yet unite the eyes ; 
 A light which, dying, never 
 
 Is cause the looker dies. 
 
 She never dies, but lasteth 
 In life of lover's heart 
 
 He ever dies that wasteth 
 In love his chief est part. 
 
 Thus is her life still guarded. 
 In never dying faith ; 
 
 Thus is his death rewarded, 
 Since she lives in his death. 
 
 Look then and die, the pleasure 
 Doth answer well the pain ; 
 
POEMS. 169 
 
 Small loss of mortal treasure^ 
 Who may immortal gain. 
 
 Immortal be her graces, 
 Immortal is her mind ; 
 
 They, fit for heavenly places. 
 This heaven in it doth bind. 
 
 But eyes these beauties see not, 
 Nor sense that grace descries ; 
 
 Yet eyes deprived be not 
 From sight of her fair eyes : 
 
 Which, as of inward glory 
 They are the outward seal^ 
 
 So may they live still sorry, 
 Which die not in that weal 
 
 But who hath fancies pleased. 
 With fruits of happy sight, 
 
 Let here his eyes be raised 
 On Nature's sweetest light. 
 
160 POEMS. 
 
 THE SMOKES OF MELANCHOLY 
 I. 
 
 Who hath e'er felt the change of love, 
 And known those pangs that losers prove, 
 May paint my face without seeing me. 
 And write the state how my fancies be. 
 The loathsome buds grown on Sorrow's tree. 
 
 But who by hearsay speaks, and hath not fully felt 
 What kind of fires they be in which those spirits 
 
 melt, 
 Shall guess, and fail, what doth displease, 
 Feeling my pulse, miss my disease. 
 
 II. 
 
 no ! O no ! trial only shows 
 
 The bitter juice of forsaken woes ; 
 
 Where former bliss, present evils do stain ; 
 
 Nay, former bliss adds to present pain, 
 
 While remembrance doth both states contain. 
 
POEMS. 161 
 
 Come, learnerS; then to me, the model of mishap, 
 Ingulphed in despair, slid down from Fortune's lap ; 
 And, as you like my double lot, 
 Tread in my steps, or follow not. 
 
 III. 
 
 For me, alas ! I am full resolved 
 Those bands, alas ! shall not be dissolved ; 
 Nor break my word, though reward come late ; 
 Nor fail my faith in my failing fate ; 
 Nor change in change, though change change my 
 state : 
 
 But always own myself, with eagle-eyed Truth, to 
 
 fly 
 
 Up to the sun, although the sun my wings do fry ; 
 For if those flames burn my desire, 
 Yet shall I die in Phoenix' fire. 
 
 19~K 
 
162 POEMS. 
 
 ODE. 
 
 When, to my deadly pleasure, 
 When to my lively torment, 
 Lady, mine eyes remained 
 Joined, alas ! to your beams. 
 
 With violence of heavenly 
 Beauty, tied to virtue ; 
 Reason abashed retired ; 
 Gladly my senses yielded. 
 
 Gladly my senses yielding, 
 Thus to betray my heart's fort. 
 Left me devoid of all life. 
 
 They to the beamy suns went, 
 Where, by the death of all deaths, 
 Find to what harm they hastened. 
 
 Like to the silly Sylvan, 
 
 Burned by the light he best liked, 
 
 When with a fire he first met. 
 
POEMS. ]63 
 
 Yet, yet, a life to their death, 
 Lady you have reserved ; 
 Lady the life of all love. 
 
 For though my sense be from ma^ 
 And I be dead, who want sense, 
 Yet do we both live in you. 
 
 Turned anew, by your means, 
 Unto the flower that aye turns, 
 As you, alas ! my sun bends. 
 
 Thus do I fall to rise thus ; 
 Thus do I die to live thus ; 
 Changed to a change, I change not. 
 
 Thus may I not be from you ; 
 Thus be my senses on you ; 
 Thus what I think is of you ; 
 Thus what I seek is in you ; 
 All what I am, it is you. 
 
164 POEMS. 
 
 VERSES. 
 
 To tne tune of a Neapolitan song^ which heginneth^ 
 ^* Noj nOf no, no.^* 
 
 No, no, no, no, I cannot hate my foe, 
 
 Although with cruel fire, 
 
 First thrown on my desire, 
 She sacks my rendered sprite ; 
 
 For so fair a flame embraces 
 
 All the places. 
 Where that heat of all heats springeth, 
 That it bringeth 
 
 To my dying heart some pleasure, 
 
 Since his treasure 
 Burneth bright in fairest light. No, no, 
 no, no 
 
 No, no, no, no, I cannot hate my foe, 
 
 Although with cruel fire, 
 
 First thrown on my desire, 
 She sacks my rendered sprite ; 
 
 Since our lives be not immortal, 
 
POEMS. 165 
 
 But to mortal 
 Fetters tied, do wait the hour 
 Of death's power, 
 
 They have no cause to be sorry 
 
 Who with glory 
 End the way, where all men stay. No, no, 
 no, no. 
 
 No, no, no, no, I cannot hate my foe, 
 
 Although with cruel fire, 
 
 First thrown on my desire. 
 She sacks my rendered sprite ; 
 
 No man doubts, whom beauty killeth, 
 
 Fair death feeleth, 
 And in whom fair death proceedeth, 
 Glory breedeth : 
 
 So that I, in her beams dying", 
 
 Glory trying. 
 Though in pain, cannot complain. No, no, 
 no, no. 
 
166 POEMS. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 To the tune of a Neapolitan Villanel. 
 
 All my sense thy sweetness gained ; 
 Thy fair hair my heart enchained ; 
 My poor reason thy words moved, 
 So that thee, like heaven, I loved. 
 
 Fa, la, la, leridan, dan, dan, dan, deridan : 
 
 Dan, dan, dan, deridan, deridan, dei : 
 While to my mind the outside stood, 
 For messenger of inward good. 
 
 Nor thy sweetness sour is deemed ; 
 Thy hair not worth a hair esteemed ; 
 Reason hath thy words removed. 
 Finding that but words they proved. 
 
 Fa, la, la, leridan, dan, dan, dan, deridan, 
 
 Dan, dan, dan, deridan, deridan, dei : 
 For no fair sign can credit win. 
 If that the substance fail within. 
 
POEMS. 167 
 
 No more m thy sweetness glory, 
 For thy knitting hair be sorry ; 
 Use thy words but to bewail thee 
 That no more thy beams avail thee 
 
 Dan, dan, 
 
 Dan, dan, 
 Lay not thy colours more to view, 
 Without the picture be found true. 
 
 Woe to me, alas, she weepeth ! 
 Fool ! in me what folly creepeth ? 
 Was I to blaspheme enraged, 
 Where my soul I have engaged ? 
 
 Dan, dan, 
 
 Dan, dan, 
 And wretched I must yield to this ; 
 The fault I blame her chasteness is 
 
 Sweetness ! sweetly pardon folly ; 
 Tie me, hair, your captive wholly : 
 Words ! O words of heavenly knowledge ! 
 Know, my words their faults acknowledge ; 
 
168 POEMS. 
 
 Dan, dan, 
 Dan, dan, 
 And all my life I will confess, 
 The less I love, I live the less 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 From " La Diana de Monte-Mayor,^^ in Spanish : where 
 SirenOy a shepherd^ whose mistress Diana had utterly 
 forsaken him, pulling out a little of her hair, wrapped 
 about with green silky to the hair he thus bewailed 
 himself. 
 
 What changes here, O hair, 
 
 I see, since I saw you ! 
 How ill fits you this green to wear, 
 
 For hope, the colour due 1 
 Indeed, I well did hope. 
 
 Though hope were mixed with fear. 
 No other shepherd should have scope 
 
 Once to approach this hair. 
 
 Ah hair ! how many days 
 My Dian made me show, 
 
POEMS. 169 
 
 With thousand pretty childish plays, 
 
 If I ware you or no ; 
 Alas, how oft with tears, — 
 
 O tears of guileful breast !— 
 She seemed full of jealous fears, 
 
 Whereat I did but jest. 
 
 Tell me, O hair of gold, 
 
 If I then faulty be, 
 That trust those killing eyes I would, 
 
 Since they did warrant me ? 
 Have you not seen her mood, 
 
 What streams of tears she spent, 
 'Till that I sware my faith so stood. 
 
 As her words had it bent ? 
 
 Who hath such beauty seen 
 
 In one that change th sol 
 Or where one' s love so constant been, 
 
 Who ever saw such woe ? 
 Ah, hair ! are you not grieved 
 
 To come from whence you be, 
 
170 POEMS. 
 
 Seeing how once you saw I lived, 
 To see me as you see ? 
 
 On sandy bank of late, 
 
 T saw this woman sit ; 
 Where, "Sooner die than change my state," 
 
 She with her finger writ : 
 Thus my belief was staid, 
 
 Behold Love's mighty hand 
 On things were by a woman said, 
 
 And written in the sand. 
 
 The same Sireno in " Monte-Mayor^'* holding his mistresses 
 glass "before her^ and looking u2)on lier while she viewed 
 herself, thus sang : — 
 
 Op this high grace, with bliss conjoined, 
 
 No farther debt on me is laid. 
 Since that in self-same metal coined, 
 
 Sweet lady, you remain well paid ; 
 
 For if my place give me great pleasure, 
 Having before my nature's treasure, 
 In face and eyes unmatched being, 
 
POEMS. 171 
 
 You have the same in my hands, seeing 
 What in your face mine eyes do measure. 
 
 Nor think the match unevenly made, 
 
 That of those beams in you do tarry, 
 The glass to you but gives a shade, 
 
 To me mine eyes the true shape carry ; 
 For such a thought most highly prized, 
 Which ever hath Love's yoke despised, 
 Better than one captived perceiveth, 
 Though he the lively form receiveth, 
 The other sees it but disguised. 
 
 SONNETS. 
 The dart, the beams, the sting, so strong I prove, 
 Which my chief part doth pass through, parch, 
 and tie. 
 That of the stroke, the heat, and knot of love, 
 Wounded, inflamed, knit to the death, I die. 
 
 Hardened and cold, far from affection's snare 
 Was once my mind, my temper, and my life ; 
 
172 POEMS. 
 
 While I that sight, desire, and vow forbare, 
 
 Which to avoid, quench, lose, nought boasted 
 strife. 
 
 Yet will not I grief, ashes, thraldom change 
 For others' ease, their fruit, or free estate ; . 
 
 So brave a shot, dear fire, and beauty strange, 
 Bid me pierce, burn, and bind, long time and 
 J ate, 
 
 And in ray wounds, my flames, and bonds, I find 
 
 A salve, fresh air, and bright contented mind. 
 
 Virtue, beauty, and speech, did strike, wound, 
 charm, 
 My heart, eyes, ears, with wonder, love, delight. 
 First, second, last, did bind, enforce, and arm. 
 His works, shows, suits, with wit. grace, and 
 vows' might, 
 
 Thus honour, liking, trust, much, far, and deep, 
 Held, pierced, possessed, my judgment, sense, 
 and will, 
 
POEMS. 173 
 
 Till wrongs, contempt, deceit, did grow, steal, creep, 
 Bands, favour, faith, to break, defile, and kill, 
 
 Then grief, unkindness, proof, took, kindled, taught. 
 Well-grounded, noble, due, spite, rage, disdain : 
 
 But ah, alas ! in vain my mind, sight, thought, 
 Doth him, his face, his words, leave, shun, refrain. 
 
 For nothing, time, nor place, can loose, quench, 
 ease 
 
 Mine own embraced, sought, knot, fire, disease. 
 
 WOOING-STUFR 
 
 Faint amorist, what, dost thou think 
 
 To taste Love's honey, and not drink 
 
 One dram of gall ? or to devour 
 
 A world of sweet, and taste no sour 1 
 
 Dost thou ever think to enter 
 
 Th' Elysian fields, that dar'st not venture 
 
 In Charon's barge ] a lover's mind 
 
 Must use to sail with every wind. 
 
174 POEMS. 
 
 He that loves and £eai*s to try, 
 
 Learns his mistress to deny. 
 
 Doth she chide thee ? ^tis to show it, 
 
 That thy coldness makes her do it : 
 
 Is she silent 1 is she mute 1 
 
 Silence fully grants thy suit : 
 
 Doth she pout, and leave the room ? 
 
 Then she goes to bid thee come : 
 
 Is she sick 1 why then be sure, 
 
 She invites thee to the cure : 
 
 Doth she cross thy suit with " No ? " 
 
 Tush, she loves to hear thee woo : 
 
 Doth she call the faith of man 
 
 In question ? Nay, she loves thee than ; 
 
 And if e'er she makes a blot. 
 
 She's lost if that thou hit'st her not. 
 
 He that after ten denials, 
 
 Dares attempt no faiiiher trials, 
 
 Hath no warrant to acquire 
 
 The dainties of his chaste desire. 
 
SONNETS 
 
 Since shunning pain, I ease can never find ; 
 
 Since bashful dread seeks where he knows me 
 harmed ; 
 
 Since will is won, and stopped ears are charmed ; 
 Since force doth faint, and sight doth make me 
 
 blind ; 
 Since loosing long, the faster still I bind ; 
 
 Since naked sense can conquer reason armed ; 
 
 Since heart, in chilling fear, with ice is warmed ; 
 In fine, since strife of thought but mars the mind, 
 
 I yield, OLove, unto thy loathed yoke. 
 Yet craving law of arms, whose rule doth teach, 
 
 That^ hardly used, who ever prison broke. 
 In justice quit, of honour made no breach : 
 
 Whereas, if I a grateful guardian have. 
 
 Thou art my lord, and I thy vowed slava 
 
176 POEMS. 
 
 When Love, puffed up with rage of high disdain, 
 Resolved to make me pattern of his might, 
 Like foe, whose wits inclined to deadly spite. 
 
 Would often kill, to breed more feeling pain ; 
 
 He would not, armed with beauty, only reign 
 On those affects which easily yield to sight ; 
 But virtue sets so high, that reason's light, 
 
 For all his strife can only bondage gain : 
 So that I live to pay a mortal fee 
 
 Dead palsy-sick of all my chiefest parts, 
 
 Like those whom dreams make ugly monsters see. 
 
 And can cry hqlp with naught but groans and 
 starts : 
 Longing to have, having no wit to wish, 
 To starving minds such is god Cupid's dish. 
 
POEMS. 177 
 
 SONG. 
 
 To the tune of *' JVon credo gia che piu infeliee amante^'' 
 
 The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth 
 
 Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, 
 While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, 
 springeth, 
 
 Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book mak- 
 ing; 
 
 And mournfully bewailing, 
 Her throat in tunes expresseth 
 What grief her breast oppresseth, 
 
 For Tereus^ force on her chaste will prevailing. 
 O Philomela fair ! O take some gladness, 
 That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness : 
 Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth ; 
 Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth. 
 
 II. 
 
 Alas ! she hath no other cause of anguish. 
 But Tereus' love, on her by stropg hand wroken, 
 19— L 
 
178 POEMS. 
 
 Wherein she suffering, all her spirits languish, 
 Full womanlike, complains her will was broken, 
 
 But I, who daily craving, 
 Cannot have to content me. 
 Have more cause to lament me, 
 
 Since wanting is more woe than too much having. 
 Philomela fair ! O take some gladness, 
 That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness : 
 Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth ; 
 Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth. 
 
 SONG. 
 To the tune of " Basciami vita miaV 
 
 Sleep, baby mine, Desire's nurse. Beauty, singeth ; 
 Thy cries, O baby, set mine head on aching : 
 The babe cries, " 'Way, thy love doth keep me 
 waking." 
 
 Lully, lully, my babe, Hope cradle bringeth 
 Unto my children alway good rest taking ; 
 
POEMS. 179 
 
 The babe cries, '* 'Way, thy love doth keep mo 
 waking." 
 Since, baby mine, from me thy watching springe th, 
 Sleep then a little, pap Content is making ; 
 The babe cries, "Nay, for that abide I waking." 
 
 The scourge of life, and death's extreme disgrace ; 
 
 The smoke of hell, the monster called Pain : 
 Long shamed to be accursed in every place, 
 
 By them who of his rude resort complain ; 
 Like crafty wretch, by time and travel taught, 
 
 His ugly evil in others' good to hide ; 
 Late harbours in her face, whom Nature wrought 
 
 As treasure-house where her best gifts do bide ; 
 And so by privilege of sacred seat, 
 
 A seat where beauty shines and virtue reigns. 
 He hopes for some small praise, since she hath great, 
 
 Within her beams wrapping his cruel stains. 
 Ah, saucy Pain, let not thy terror last, 
 More loving eyes she draws, more hate thou hast. 
 
180 POEMS. 
 
 II. 
 
 Woe ! woe to me, on me return the smart : 
 
 My burning tongue hath bred my mistress pain ? 
 For oft in pain, to pain my painful heart, 
 
 With her due praise did of my state complain. 
 I praised her eyes, whom never chance doth move : 
 
 Her breath, which makes a sour answer sweet ; 
 Her milken breasts, the nurse of child-like love ; 
 
 Her legs, O legs ! her aye well-stepping feet : 
 Pain heard her praise, and full of inward fire, 
 
 (First sealing up my heart as prey of his) 
 He flies to her, and, boldened with desire, 
 
 Her face, this age's praise, the thief doth kiss. 
 O Pain ! I now recant the praise I gave, 
 And swear she is not worthy thee to have. 
 
 in. 
 
 Thou pain, the only guest of loathed Constraint ; 
 The child of Curse, man's weakness foster-child ; 
 
 Brother to Woe, and father of Complaint : 
 Thou Pain, thou hated Pain, from heaven exiled, 
 
POEMS. 181 
 
 How hold'st thou her whose eyes constraint doth 
 
 fear, 
 Whom cursed do bless ; whose weakness virtues 
 
 arm ; 
 
 Who others' woes and plaints can chastely bear : 
 
 In whose sweet heaven angels of high thoughts 
 
 swarm 1 
 
 What courage strange hath caught thy caitiff' 
 
 heart ? 
 
 Fear'st not a face that oft whole hearts devours 1 
 
 Or art thou from above bid play this part, 
 
 And so no help 'gainst envy of those powers ? 
 
 If thus, alas, yet while those parts have woe ; 
 
 So stay her tongue, that she no more say, " O." 
 
 IV, 
 
 And have I heard her say, " O cruel pain ! " 
 And doth she know what mould her beauty bears 1 
 
 Mourns she in truth, and thinks that others feign 1 
 Fears she to feel, and feels not others' fears ] 
 Or doth she think all pain the mind forbears ? 
 
 That heavy earth, not fiery spirits, may plain J 
 
182 POEMS. 
 
 That eyes weep worse than heart in bloody tears ? 
 
 That sense feels more than what doth sense 
 contain ? 
 ISToj no, she is too wise, she knows her face 
 
 Hath not such pain as it makes others have : 
 She knows the sickness of that perfect place 
 
 Hath yet such health, as it my life can save. 
 But this, she thinks, our pain high cause excuseth, 
 Where her, who should rule pain, false pain 
 abuseth. 
 
 Like as the dove, which seeled up doth fly, 
 
 Is neither freed, nor yet to service bound ; 
 But hopes to gain some help by mounting high, 
 
 Till want of force do force her fall to ground : 
 Bight so my mind, caught by his guiding eye. 
 
 And thence cast off where his sweet hurt he found, 
 Hath neither leave to live, nor doom to die ; 
 
 Nor held in evil, nor suffered to be sound. 
 But with his wings of fancies up he goes, 
 
 To high conceits, whose fruits are oft but small ; 
 
POEMS. 183 
 
 Till wounded, blind, and wearied spirit, lose 
 
 Both force to fly, and knowledge where to fall : 
 O happy dove, if she no bondage tried ! 
 More happy I, might I in bondage bide I 
 
 In wonted walks, since wonted fancies change, 
 
 Some cause there is, which of strange cause doth 
 rise : 
 For in each thing whereto mine eye doth range, 
 
 Part of my pain, me-seems, engraved lies. 
 The rocks, which were of constant mind the mark. 
 
 In climbing steep, now hard refusal show ; 
 The shading woods seem now my sun to dark, 
 
 And stately hills disdain to look so low. 
 The restful caves now restless visions give ; 
 
 In dales I see each way a hard ascent : 
 Like late-mown meads, late cut from joy I live ; 
 
 Alas, sweet brooks do in my tears augment : 
 Hocks, woods, hills, caves, dales, meads, brooks, 
 answei' me ; 
 
184 POEMS. 
 
 Infected minds infect each thiog they see. 
 If I could think how these my thoughts to leave, 
 Or thinking still, my thoughts might have good 
 end ; 
 If rebel sense would reason's law receive ; 
 
 Or reason foiled, would not in vain contend : 
 Then might I think what thoughts were best to 
 
 think : 
 Then might I wisely swim, or gladly sink. 
 
 If either you would change your cruel heart. 
 Or, cruel still, time did your beauties stain ; 
 
 If from my soul this love would once depart, 
 Or for my love some love I might obtain ; 
 
 Then might I hope a change, or ease of mind. 
 
 By your good help, or in myself, to find. 
 
 But since my thoughts in thinking still are spent. 
 
 With reason's strife, by senses overthrown ; 
 You fairer still, and still more cruel bent, 
 
 I loving still a love that loveth none : 
 I yield and strive, I kiss and curse the pain, 
 Thought, reason, sense, time. You, and I, maintain. 
 
POEMS. 185 
 
 A FAREWELL. 
 
 Oft have I mused, but now at length I find 
 Why those that die, men say, they do depart : 
 
 Depart : a word so gentle to my mind, 
 
 Weakly did seem to paint Death's ugly dart. 
 
 But now the stars, with their strange course, do 
 bind 
 
 Me one to leave, with whom I leave my heart ; 
 I hear a cry of spirits faint and blind. 
 
 That parting thus, my chiefest part I part. 
 
 Part of my life, the loathed part to me, 
 
 Lives to impart my weary clay some breath ; 
 
 But that good part wherein all comforts be, 
 Now dead, doth show departure is a death : 
 
 Yea, worse than death, death parts both woe and 
 
 joy, 
 
 From joy I part, still living in annoy. 
 
186 POEMS. 
 
 Finding those beams, which I must ever love, 
 To mar my mind, and with my hurt to please, 
 
 I deemed it best, some absence for to prove, 
 If farther place might further me to ease. 
 
 My eyes thence drawn, where lived all their light. 
 Blinded forthwith in dark despair did lie. 
 
 Like to the mole, with want of guiding sight, 
 Deep plunged in earth, deprived of the sky. 
 
 In absence blind, and wearied with that woe, 
 To greater woes, by presence, I return ; 
 
 Even as the fly, which to the flame doth go, 
 
 Pleased with the light, that his small corse doth 
 burn : 
 
 Fair choice I have, either to live or die 
 A blinded mole, or else a burned fly. 
 
POEMS. 187 
 
 THE SEVEN WONDERS OF ENGLAND- 
 I. 
 Near Wilton sweet, huge heaps of stones are 
 found, 
 But so confused, that neither any eye 
 Can count them just, nor Reason reason try, 
 What force brought them to so unlikely ground. 
 
 To stranger weights my mind's waste soil is bound, 
 Of passion-hills, reaching to Reason's sky, 
 
 From Fancy's earth, passing all number's bound, 
 Passing all guess, whence into me should ily 
 
 So mazed a mass ; or, if in me it grows, 
 
 A simple soul should breed so mixed woes. 
 
 II. 
 
 The Bruertons have a lake, which, when the sun 
 Approaching warmS; not else, dead logs up sends 
 From hideous depth ; which tribute, when it ends. 
 
 Sore sign it is the lord's last thread is spun. 
 
188 POEMS. 
 
 My lake is Sense, whose still streams never run 
 But when my sun her shining twins there bends ; 
 
 Then from his depth with force in her begun, 
 Long drowned hopes to watery eyes it lends ; 
 
 But when that fails my dead hopes up to take, 
 
 Their master is fair warned his will to make. 
 
 III. 
 
 We have a fish, by strangers mucn admired. 
 Which caught, to cruel search yields his chief part : 
 With gall cut out, closed up again by art, 
 
 Yet lives until his life be new required. 
 
 A stranger fish myself, not yet expired, 
 Tho', rapt with Beauty's hook, I did impart 
 
 Myself unto th' anatomy desired, 
 Instead of gall, leaving to her my heart : 
 
 Yet live with thoughts closed up, 'till that she 
 will, 
 
 By conquest's right, instead of searching, kill. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Peak hath a cave, whose narrow entries find 
 Large rooms within where drops distil amain : 
 
POEMS. 189 
 
 Till knit with cold, though there unknown remain^ 
 Deck that poor place with alabaster lined. 
 
 Mine eyes the strait, the roomy cave, my mind ; 
 Whose cloudy thoughts let fall an inward rain 
 
 Of sorrow's drops, till colder reason bind 
 Their running fall into a constant vein 
 
 Of truth, far more than alabaster pure. 
 
 Which, though despised, yet still doth truth 
 endure. 
 
 A field there is, where, if a stake be prest 
 Deep in the earth, what hath in earth receipt, 
 Is changed to stone in hardness, cold, and weight, 
 
 The wood above doth soon consuming rest. 
 
 The earth her ears ; the stake is my request ; 
 Of which, how much may pierce to that sweet seat, 
 
 To honour turned, doth dwell in honour's nest, 
 Keeping that form, though void of wonted heat ; 
 
 But all the rest, which fear durst not apply, 
 
 Failing themselves, with withered conscience die. 
 
190 POEMS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Of ships by shipwreck east on Albion*s coast, 
 Which rotting on the rocks, their death to die : 
 From wooden bones and blood of pitch doth fly 
 
 A bird, which gets more life than ship had lost. 
 
 My ship, Desire, with wind of Lust long tost, 
 Brake on fair cliffs of constant Chastity ; 
 
 Where plagued for rash attempt, gives up his 
 ghost ; 
 So deep in seas of virtue, beauties lie : 
 
 But of this death flies up the purest love, 
 
 Which seeming less, yet nobler life doth move. 
 
 I 
 
 VII. 
 
 These wonders England breeds; the last remains — 
 A lady, in despite of Nature, chaste. 
 On whom all love, in whom no love is placed, 
 
 Where Fairness yields to Wisdom's shortest reins. 
 
 A humble pride, a scorn that favour stains j 
 A woman's mould, but like an angel graced ; 
 An angel's mind, but in a woman cased ; 
 
POEMS. 191 
 
 A heaven on earth, or earth that heaven contains : 
 Now thus this wonder to myself I frame ; 
 She is the cause that all the rest I am. 
 
 Thou blind man's mark; thou fool's self-chosen 
 snare, 
 
 Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scattered thought : 
 Band of all evils ; cradle of causeless care ; 
 
 Thou web of will, whose end is never wrought : 
 
 Desire ! Desire ! I have too dearly bought, 
 With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware ; 
 
 Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought 
 Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare ; 
 
 But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought ; 
 In vain thou mad'st me to vain things aspire ; 
 In vain thou kindlest all thy smoky fire ; 
 
 For Virtue hath this better lesson taught, 
 Within myself to seek my only hire, 
 Desiring nought but how to kill Desire. 
 
192 POEMS. 
 
 FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN. 
 
 Leave me, O love ! which reachest but to dust ; 
 
 And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things : 
 Grow rich in that which never taketh rust ; 
 
 Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings. 
 
 Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might 
 To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be, 
 
 Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light 
 That doth both shine, and give us sight to see. 
 
 O take fast hold ! let that light be thy guide, 
 In this small course which birth draws out to 
 death. 
 And think how evil becometh him to slide, 
 
 Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly 
 breath. 
 
 Then farewell, world, thy uttermost I see, 
 Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me. 
 
 SPLENDIDIS LONGUM VALEDICO NUGIS. 
 
 Printed by The East of England Printing Works, London and Norwich. 
 30.4.09 
 
GASSELL'S LITTLE CLASSICS 
 
 THE FIRST 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE 
 
 VOLUMES 
 
 LIST FOR REFERENCE 
 
 Litt. Classics, 6/14. 
 
CASSELL'S LITTLE CLASSICS 
 
 INTRODUCTIONS 
 
 By G. K. CHESTERTON, AUSTIN DOBSON, J. A. HOBSON. 
 
 STUART J. REID and others. 
 
 1. Ascham's The Schoolmaster 
 
 2. Bacon's Essays 
 
 3. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (Part 1) 
 
 4. Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 
 
 5. Carlyle's Heroes and Hero-Worship 
 
 6. Dickens' Christmas Carol and The Chimes 
 
 7. Evelyn's Diary 
 
 8. Goldsmith's Plays 
 9* Johnson's Rasselas 
 
 10. Lamb*s Essays of Elia 
 
 11. Maoaulay's Warren Hastings 
 
 12. Maundeville's Voyages and Travels 
 
 13. Milton's Earlier Poems 
 
 14. More's Utopia 
 
 15. Ruskin's Unto This Last 
 
 16. Scott's Marmion 
 
 17. Shelley's Prometheus Unbound * 
 
 18. Sheridan's Plays 
 
 19. Sidney's Defence of Poesie and Poems 
 
 20. Steele and Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley 
 
 21. Swift's Battle of the Books, etc. 
 
 22. Tennyson's Poems 
 
 23. Thackeray's The Four Georges 
 
 24. Walpole's Letters 
 
 25. Wordsworth's Poems 
 
 The above list will be added to from time to time 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
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