tion; for every understanding knoweth the skill of each artificer ftandeth in that idea, or fore. conceit of the work, and not in the work itself. And that the poet hath that idea, is manifeft, by the delivering them forth in fuch excellency as he had imagined them; which delivering forth, also, is not wholly imaginative, as we were wont to fay by them that build caftles in the air; but so far substantially it worketh, not only to make a Cyrus, which had been but a particular excellency, as nature might have done; but to beftow a Cyrus upon the world to make many Cyrusses; if they will learn aright, why, and how that Maker made him. Neither let it be deemed too faucy 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, fet him beyond, and over all the works of that fecond nature; which in nothing he fhewed fo much as in Poetry; when, with the force of a divine breath, he bringeth things forth furpaffing her doings, with no fmall arguments to the incredulous of that firft accurfed fall of Adam; fince our erected wit maketh us know what perfection is, and yet our infected will keepeth us from reaching unto it. But thefe arguments will by few be understood, and by fewer granted: Thus much I hope will

be

be given me, that the Greeks, with fome probability of reafon, gave him the name above all names of learning.

Now let us go to a more ordinary opening of him, that the truth may be the more palpable; and fo, I hope, though we get not fo unmatched a praife, 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 Commendation.

Poefy therefore, is an Art of imitation; for fo Ariftotle termeth it in the word piunois; that is μίμησις to say, A representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth to speak metaphorically, A speaking picture; with this end, To teach and delight.

Of this have been three general kinds; the CHIEF, both in antiquity and excellency, were they that did imitate the unconceivable excellencies of God; fuch were David in his Pfalms; Solomon in his Song of Songs, in his Ecclefiaftes and Proverbs; Mofes and Deborah in their hymns'; and the writer of Job; which, befides others, the learned Emanuel Tremellius, and Fr. Junius do intitle, the poetical part of the fcripture: Against thefe none will fpeak that hath the Holy Ghoft in due holy reverence. In this kind, though in a full wrong divinity, were Or pheus, Amphion, Homer in his Hymns, and many others, both Greeks and Romans. And this Po

efy must be used by whosoever will follow St. Paul's counfel, in finging pfalms when they are merry; and I know is used with the fruit of comfort by fome, when, in forrowful pangs of their death-bringing fins, they find the confolation of the never-leaving goodness.

The SECOND kind is of them that deal with matter philofophical; either Moral, as Tyrtæus, Phocylides, Cato; or Natural, as Lucretius, Virgil's Georgicks; or Aftronomical, as Manilius and Pontanus; or Hiftorical, as Lucan; which who miflike, the fault is in their judgment, quite out of taste, and not in the fweet food of fweetly uttered knowledge..

But because this fecond fort is wrapped within the fold of the propofed fubject, and takes not the free course of his own invention whether they properly be Poets, or no, let Grammarians difpute, and go to the THIRD, indeed right Poets, of whom chiefly this question arifeth Betwixt whom and thefe fecond is fuch a kind of difference, as betwixt the meaner fort of Painters, who counterfeit only fuch faces as are fet before them; and the more excellent, who having no law but wit, bestow that in colours upon you which is fitteft for the eye to fee; as the conftant, though lamenting look of Lucretia, when she punished in herself another's fault: Wherein he painteth not Lucretia, whom he never faw, but painteth the outward beauty

of

of fuch a vertue. For thefe THREE be they which moft properly do imitate, to teach and delight; and to imitate, borrow nothing of what is, hath been, or fhall be; but range only, reined with learned discretion, into the divine confideration of what may be, and fhould be. These be they, that, as the firft and moft noble fort, may justly be termed Vates: So thefe are waited on in the excellenteft languages and beft understandings, with the fore-defcribed name of Poets. For thefe, 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 ftranger; and teach to make them know that goodnefs 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.

Thefe be fubdivided into fundry more fpecial denominations: The most notable be the heroick, lyrick, tragick, comick, fatyrick, iambick, elegiack, paftoral, and certain others; fome of thefe being termed according to the matter they deal with; fome by the fort of verfe they liked beft to write in; for indeed the greateft part of poets have apparelled their poetical inventions in that numerous kind of writing which is called verfe. Indeed but apparelled verfe,

being

being but an ornament, and no caufe to poetry, fince there have been many most excellent poets that never verfified, and now fwarm many verfifiers that need never answer to the name of poets. For Xenophon, who did imitate fo excellently as to give us effigiem jufti imperij, the portraiture of a juft empire, under the name of Cyrus, as Cicero faith of him, made therein an abfolute heroical poem. So did Heliodorus, in his fugared invention of that picture of love in Theagenes and Chariclea; and yet both these wrote in profe; which I fpeak to fhew, that it is not rhyming and verfing that maketh a poet (no more than a long gown maketh an advocate, who, though he pleaded in armour, fhould be an advocate and no foldier ;) but it is, that feigning notable images of virtues, vices, or what elfe, with that delightful teaching, which must be the right defcribing note to know a poet by. Although indeed the fenate of poets have chofen verfe as their fitteft rayment; meaning, as in matter they paffed all in all, fo in manner to go beyond them; not fpeaking, table-talk fashion, or like men in a dream, words as they chanceably fall from the mouth, but piecing each fyllable of each word by just proportion, according to the dignity of the fubject.

Now therefore it fhall not be amifs, firft, To weigh this latter fort of poetry, By his works,

and