And marshal matters, in those daies *,
Were sung and set aloft;

So some the art of warre did raise,
Unto the skies full oft.

Sibilla's prophesies in verse

Were alwaies uttred well;

The oracles of Delphos to,

In verse would woonders tell.

In pollicies wise Solont plaid
The poet, sundrie waies;

Good things were better soong than said,
Which gain'd immortall praise.

Plato tooke Solon's works in hand,
And plaid the poet right,

And set that Atlantike island

Full plaine before our sight.

The booke of Herodotus bore
A famous title fine,

Yea, such as none did give before,
Of all the Muses nine.

Domitian § was a poet rare,

And did therein excell;
So many princes now there are,

That loveth poetrie well.

Three conquerours of mightie powre ||

Gave poets such a grace,

That they would never frowne nor lowre
On them in any case.

* Tyrtæus.

+ Solon wrote the fable of the Atlantick island. Plato, a divine philosopher, did stoop to poetrie. § Vespasian's sonne, as Pliny saith, was an excellent poet. Alexander, Cæsar, and Scipio.

As Plutarke saith, a tyrant wept *
A tragedie to heare,

Who sawe his murthering minde thereby
As in a glas full cleere.

Amid a great revolt in Rome.

A woorthie poett stood,

And told of bodie and the minde

A tale that did much good.

Two poets turn'd a tyrant's hart

From rigour unto ruth;

And wrought him, with their wits and art,

To favour right and truth."

The old court poet thus proceeds in his survey of metrical writers, sacred and prophane.

Nathan § did faine a tale indeed

To David, when he fell;

Whereon the King tooke such great heed,

He saw his follie well.

In David's || psalms true meter floes,

And songs of Saloman,

Where great delite and pleasure groes,

Are worthie looking on.

A Dialogue** that Plato made

Gives poets great renowne,

Brings each rare wit to sun from shade
To weare the laurell croune.

True stories old, with new delite

Shall fill your narts and eares;

Alexander Phereus wept at a tragedy.

+ Menenius Agrippa, a philosopher, made peace among the people in an uprore. Simonides and Pindarius made Hiero a just king. § Nathan spake of a lamb, ungraciously taken from his bosome. David and Saloman, divine poets. · ** Plato's dialogue called Ion.

For they of poets' praises write,
Their books good witness beares.*

If aunshent authors and great kings
No credit gets herein;

Darke sight sees not so stately things,
That doth great glory win.†

Plucke up cleere judgment from the pit
Of poore esprit and sense,

And wipe the slime from slubber'd wit,
And looke on this defence;‡

That Sydney makes a matchlesse worke,
A matter fresh and new,

That did long while in silence lurke,
And seldome came to view.§

He cals them poets, that embrace
True vertue in her kinde,

And do not run with rimes at bace,

With wanton blotted minde.||

All idle verse he counts but vaine,
Like cracks of thorns in fire,
Or summer show'rs of sleete or raine,
That turns drie dust to mire.**

These rurall rymes are but the scum
And froth that flies from seas,

* Lelius, a Roman, and Socrates, both were poets. James the First, that was King of Scotland, and K. James the Sixt, now raigning, great poets.

The Greeke Socrates put Æsop's fables into verse, and Aristotle wrate the arte of poetrie.

§ Emperors, kings, captains, and senators, were poets, and favoured the art.

Adrian and Sophocles, great poets.

**Of our neerer time, the patrons of poetry, Robert, King of Cecill, [Sicily] and the great Francis, King of France.

Or doth from some sharpe humor come
That breeds a new disease.*

In braine that beats about the skull
And so brings forth a toye
(When musse or moone is at the full)
Of paines or pleasing joye.†

Like long-wing'd hauke, doth poet soar
Ore mountaine or hie trees,
And loud as cannon can he rore
At each vice that he sees.

His scope as hie as reason's reach
May climbe, in order due,
Not to give counsell, nor to teach,
But to write fancies new.§

Of this or that, as matter moves
A well-disposed minde,

That vice doth hate and vertue loves,
And he good cause doth finde.||

So ruling pen, as duties bounds,

Be kept in evry part;

For when the poet trumpet sounds,

It must be done by art.

As though a sweete consort should plaie
On instruments most fine,

And shew their musicke evry waie,

With daintie notes divine.**

*Cardinal Bembus, and Bibiena.

† Famous teachers and preachers, Beża and Melancthon.

Learned philosophers, Fracastorius and Scaliger.

Great and good orators, Pontanus and Muretus.

And beyond all these, the hospitall of France being builded on vertue, gave poets a singular commendation.

** Alexander kept the books of Homer in Darius his jewel-casket.

Each string in tune, as concord were
The guide of all the glee,

Whose harmonie must please the eare,

With musicke franke and free.*

The poets lyra must be strung
With wire of silver sound,
That all his verses may be sung
With maidens in a round.

So chaste and harmless should they be,
As words from preacher's voice,
With spiced speech in each degree
Wherein good men rejoice.t

Not farsed full of follies light

That beares ne poise nor weight,

But flying cleer in air-like flight,
Whose force mounts up an height.

And seems to pearce the cloudie skies:
Such poets Sidney likes,

Whose gentle wind makes dust arise

As hie as morice pikes;

That lifts aloft the soldier's hart,

Who doth advance the same;
And bends his bodie in each part,

Thereby to purchase fame.

* Menander, the comicke poet, being sent for by embassadors of Macedonia and Egipt, preferred the conscience of learning, before kinglie fortunes.

Augustus Cæsar wrate familiar epistles unto Horace, which Horace in his life was advanced to the tribuneship of soldiers, and when he died he left Augustus Cæsar his heire.

Virgill entring the colledge of poets in Rome, the rest of the poets there did more reverence to him than to the emperor; and when he came into the senate the senators likewise did so.