The {18}SECOND kind is of them that deal with matter philosophical;either moral,as Tyrtaeus,Phocylides,Cato,or,natural,as Lucretius,Virgil's Georgics;or astronomical,as Manilius {19}and Pontanus;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.
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 THIRD,{20}indeed right poets,of whom chiefly this question ariseth;betwixt whom and these second 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 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 discretion,into the divine consideration of what may be,and should be.These be they,that,as the 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.
These {21}be subdivided into sundry more special denominations;the most notable be the heroic,lyric,tragic,comic,satyric,iambic,elegiac,pastoral,and certain 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 apparelied verse,being but an ornament,and no cause to poetry,since there have been many most excellent poets that never versified,and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets.{22}For Xenophon,who did imitate so excellently as to give us effigiem justi imperii,the portraiture of a just of Cyrus,as Cicero saith of him,made therein an absolute heroical poem.So did Heliodorus,{23}in his sugared invention of 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 to know a poet by.Although,indeed,the senate of poets have chosen verse as their fittest raiment;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 dream,words as they changeably fall from the mouth,but piecing each syllable of each word by just proportion,according to the dignity of the subject.
Now,{24}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 anatomies he be commendable,I hope we shall receive 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 perfection as our degenerate souls,made worse by,their clay lodgings,{25}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 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 [Greek text],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 horsemanship;so the horseman's to soldiery;and the soldier not only to have the skill,but to perform the practice of a soldier.
