and first nurse, whose milk by little and little enabled them to feed afterwards 1of tougher knowledges. And will you 2 play the hedgehog, 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 Musaeus, 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 deliverers 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 Orpheus to be listened to by beasts, indeed stony and beastly people: so among the Romans were Livius, Andronicus, and Ennius: so in the Italian language, 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 the philosophers of Greece durst not a long time appear to the world, but under the mask of poets: so Thales, Empedocles, and Parmenides, sang their natural philosophy in verses: so did Pythagoras and Phocylides their moral counsels: so did Tyrtaeus in war matters, and Solon in matters of policy: or rather, they being poets, did exercise their delightful 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 noble 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 inside and strength were philosophy, the skin, as it were, and beauty, depended most of poetry. For all stands upon dialogues, wherein he feigns many

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 meetings, as the well-ordering of a banquet, the delicacy of a walk, and 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 intituled 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, the many particularities of battles which no man could affirm; or, if that be denied me, long orations, put in the mouths of great kings and captains, which, it is certain, they never pronounced. So that, truly, neither philosopher nor historiographer could, at the first, have entered into the gates of popular judgment, if they had not taken a great 7passport 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 law-giving divines, they have no other writers but poets. In our neighbour-country Ireland, where, truly, 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 ancestors' deeds, and praises of their gods. A sufficient probability, that if ever learning come among them, it must be by having their hard, dull wits, softened and sharpened with the sweet delight of poetry; for 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 knowledge. In Wales, the true remnant of the ancient 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 of 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 10 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 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 Virgilianae," 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,—

11 "Arma amens capio nec sat rationis in armis;"

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 reverence those wits were held in, and altogether not without ground, since both the oracles of Delphos and the sibyls' prophecies were wholly delivered in verses; for that same exquisite observing of 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 further, to show the reasonableness of this word Vates, and say that the holy David's Psalms are a divine poem? If I do, I shall not do it without the testimony of great learned men, both ancient and modern. But even the name of Psalms will speak for me; which, being interpreted, is nothing but songs: then, that it 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 12 merely poetical. For what else is the awaking his musical instruments; the often and free changing of persons; his notable proso

popoeias, when he maketh you, as it were, see God coming in his majesty; his telling of the beasts' joyfulness, and hills leaping, but a heavenly poesy; wherein, almost, he showeth himself a passionate 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 Пonths: which name hath, as the most excellent, gone through other languages. It cometh of this word Tolev, which is “to make:" wherein, I know not whether by luck or wisdom, we Englishmen 13 have met with the Greeks in calling him 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 allegation. There is no art delivered unto mankind that hath not the works of nature for 14 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 grammarian speaketh only of the rules of speech; and the rhetorician and logician, considering what in nature will soonest prove, and persuade thereon, 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 or hurtful unto it. And the 15 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: 16 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 such tapestry as divers poets have done; neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else 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 17 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 Cyrus, and so excellent a man every way as Virgil's Aeneas? Neither let this be jestingly conceived, because the works of the one be 18 essential, the other in imitation or fiction; for every understanding knoweth the skill of each artificer standeth in that idea, or foreconceit of the work, and not in the work itself. And that the poet hath that idea, is manifest, by the delivering them forth in such excellency as he had imagined them: which delivering forth, also, is not wholly imaginative, as we were wont to say 19 by them that build castles 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 bestow 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 20 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