...other forms of toil: coining, ironworking, cloth production, agriculture, housebuilding, cookery. 21 No matter how slow the style be at first, so it be labour'd, and accurate: seeke the best, and be not glad of forward conceipts, or first words, that...

...accession of suitable diction. The poet who would write well, he noted in Discoveries, must "take care in placing, and ranking both matter, and words, that the composition be comely." ly Horace's account of the compositional process, one which has had its adherents throughout literary...

..."things wrote with labour . . . will last",40 and encouraging his pupils with the observation that it is "no matter how slow the style be at first, so it be labour'd, and accurate".4i No later than i60i, Ingenioso in The Returne from Parnassus, Part I (IV....

...and excogitate his matter; then choose his words, and examine the weight of either. Then take care in placing, and ranking both matter, and words, that...comely; and to do this with diligence, and often" (HS 8: 615). Thus one begins with the matter and proceeds to clothe it in words, a decorum of language...

...to mock at the rhetorical excesses of Ciceronians such as Harvey (67c): (67) a) Then take care, in placing and ranking both matter and words, that the composition be comely; and to doe this with nu.igence andorien. (Jonson 1640/?1 620-35) b) the Holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures...

...wrote with labour . . . will last" (8:638) and cautions that a novice's writing should be encouraged, "no matter how slow the style be at first, so it be labour'd and accurate" (8:615). He also informed Drummond that he first wrote his poetry out in prose,...

...with giving birth in relation to the writing process of revision."1 He advises writers, for instance: No matter how slow the style be at first, so it be labour 'd. and accurate: seeke the best, and be not glad of the forward conceipts, or first words,...