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2.9. How if all maner of sodaine innouations were not very scandalous, specially in the lawes of any langage or arte, the use of the Greeke and Latine feete might be brought into our vulgar Poesie, and with good grace inough.

Now neuerthelesse albeit we haue before alledged that our vulgar Saxon English standing most vpon wordes monosillable, and little vpon polysillables doth hardly admit the vse of those

fine inuented feete of the Greeks & Latines, and that for the most part wise and graue men doe naturally mislike with all sodaine innouations specially of lawes (and this the law of our auncient English Poesie) and therefore lately before we imputed it to a nice & scholasticall curiositie in such makers as haue sought to bring into our vulgar Poesie some of the auncient feete, to wit the Dactile into verses exameters, as he that translated certaine bookes of Virgils Eneydos in such measures & not vncommendably: if I should now say otherwise it would make me seeme contradictorie to my selfe, yet for the information of our yong makers, and pleasure of all others who be delighted in noueltie, and to th'intent we may not seeme by ignorance of ouersight to omit any point of subtillitie, materiall or necessarie to our vulgar arte, we will in this present chapter & by our own idle obseruations shew how one may easily and commodiously lead all those feete of the auncients into our vulgar language. And if mens eares were not perchaunce to daintie, or their iudgementes ouer partiall, would peraduenture nothing at all misbecome our arte, but make in our meetres a more pleasant numerositie then now is. Thus farre therefore we will aduenture and not beyond, to th'intent to shew some singularitie in our arte that euery man hath not heretofore obserued, and (her maiesty good liking always had) whether we make the common readers to laugh or to lowre, all is a matter, since our intent is not so exactlie to prosecute the purpose, nor so earnestly, as to thinke it should by authority of our owne iudgement be generally applauded at to the discredit of our forefathers maner of vulgar Poesie, or to the alteration or peraduenture totall destruction of the same, which could not stand with any good discretion or curtesie in vs to attempt, but thus much I say, that by some leasurable trauell it were not hard matter to induce all their auncient feete into vse with vs, and that it should proue very agreable to the eare and well according with our ordinary times and pronunciation, which no man could then iustly mislike, and that is to allow euery word polisillable one long time of necessitie, which should be where his sharpe accent falls in our owne ydiome most aptly and naturally, wherein we would not follow the license of the Greeks and Latines, who made not their sharpe accent any necessary prolongation of their times, but vsed such sillable sometimes long sometimes short at their pleasure. The other sillables of any word where the sharpe accent fell not to be accompted of such time and quantitie as his ortographie would best beare hauing regard to himselfe, or to his next neighbour, word, bounding him on either side, namely to the smoothnes & hardnesse of the sillable in his vtterance, which is occasioned altogether by his ortographie & scituation as in this word [dayly] the first sillable for his vsuall and sharpe accentes sake to be alwayes long, the second for his flat accents sake to be alwayes short, and the rather for his ortographie, bycause if he goe before another word commencing with a vowell not letting him to be eclipsed, his vtterance is easie & currant, in this trisillable [daungerous] the first to be long, th'other two short for the same causes. In this word [dangerousnesse] the first & last to be both long, bycause they receiue both of them the sharpe accent, and the two middlemost to be short, in these words [remedie] & [remedilesse] the time to follow also the accent, so as if ti please better to set the sharpe accent vpon [re] then vpon [dye] that sillable should be made long and è conuerso, but in this word [remedilesse] bycause may like better to accent eh sillable [me] then the sillable [les] therefore I leaue him for a common sillable to be able to receiue both a long and a short time as occasion shall serue. The like law I set in these wordes [reuocable] [recouerable] [irreuocable] [irrecouerable] for sometime it sounds better to say reuocable then reuocable, recouerable then recouerable for this one thing ye must alwayes marke that if your time fall either by reason of his sharpe accent or otherwise vpon the penultima, ye shal finde many other words to rime with him, bycause such terminations are not geazon, but if the long time fall vpon the antepenultima ye shall not finde many wordes to match him in his termination, which is the cause of his concord or rime, but if you would let your long time by his sharpe accent fall aboue the antepenultima as to say [couerable] ye shall seldome or perchance neuer find one to make vp rime with him vnlesse it be badly and by abuse, and therefore in all such long polisillables ye doe commonly giue two sharpe accents, and thereby reduce him into two feete as in this word [remu neration] which makes a couple of good Dactils, and in this word [contribution] which makes a good spondeus & a good dactill, and in this word [recapitulation] it makes two dactills and a sillable ouerplus to annexe to the word precedent to helpe peece vp another foote. But for wordes monosillables (as be most of ours) because in pronouncing them they do of necessitie retaine a sharpe accent, ye may iustly allow them to be all long if they will so best serue your turne, and if they be tailed one to another, or th'one to a disillable or polysillable ye ought to allow them that time that best serues your purpose and pleaseth your eare most, and truliest aunsweres the nature of the ortographie in which I would as neare as I could obserue and keepe the lawes of the Greeke and Latine versifiers, that is to prolong the sillable which is written with double consonants or by dipthong or with single consonants that run hard and harshly vpon the toung: and to shorten all sillables that stand vpon vowels, if there were no cause of elision and single consonants & such of them as are most flowing and slipper vpon the toung as n. r. t. d. l. and for this purpose to take away all aspirations, and many times the last consonant of a word as the Latine Poetes vsed to do, specially Lucretius and Ennius as to say [finibu] for [finibus] and so would not I stick to say thus [delite] for [delight] [hye] for [high] and such like, & doth nothing at all impugne the rule I gaue before against the wresting of wordes by false ortographie to make vp rime, which may not be falsified. But this omission of letters in the middest of a meetre to make him the more slipper, helpes the numerositie and hinders not the rime. But generally the shortning or prolonging of the monosillables dependes much vpon the nature of their ortographie which the Latin grammariens call the rule of position, as for example if I shall say thus.

Not manie dayes past. Twentie dayes after.

This makes a good Dactill and a good spondeus, but if ye turne them backward it would not do so, as.

Many dayes not past.

And the distick made all of monosillables.

Which words serue well to make the verse all spondiacke or iambicke, but not in dactil, as other words or the same otherwise placed

would do, for it were an illfauored dactil to say.

But none of, us all trewe.

Therefore whensoeuer your words will not make a smooth dactil, ye must alter them or their situations, or else turne them to other feete that may better beare their maner of sound and orthographie: or if the word be polysillable to deuide him, and to make him serue by peeces, that he could not do whole and entierly. And no doubt by like consideration did the Greeke & Latine versifiers fashion all their feete at the first to be of sundry times, and the selfe same sillable to be sometime long and sometime short for the eares better satisfaction as hath bene before remembred. Now also wheras I said before that our old Saxon English for his many monosillables did not naturally admit the vse of the ancient feete in our vulgar measures so aptly as in those languages which stood most vpon polisillables, I sayd it in a sort truly, but now I must recant and confesse that our Normane English which hath grown since William the Conquerour doth admit any of the auncient feete, by reason of the many polysillables euen to sixe and seuen in one word, which we at this day vse in our most ordinarie language: and which corruption hath bene occasioned chiefly by the peeuish affectation not of the Normas them selues, but of clerks and scholers or secretaries long since, wo not content with the vsual Normane or Saxon word, would conuert the very Latine and Greeke word into vulgar French, as to say innumerable for innombrable, reuocable, irreuocable, irradiation, depopulation & such like, which are not naturall Normas nor yet French, but altered Latines, and without any imitation at all: which therefore were long time despised for inkehorne termes, and now be reputed the best & most delicat of any other. Of which & many other causes of corruption of our speach we haue in another place more amply discoursed, but by this meane we may at this day very well receiue the auncient feete metricall of the Greeks and Latines sauing those that be superflous as be all the feete aboue the trisillable, which the old Grammarians idly inuented and distinguisht by speciall names, whereas in deede the same do stand compounded with the inferiour feete, and therefore some of them were called by the names of didactilus, dispondeus and disiambus: all which feete as I say we may

be allowed to vse with good discretion & precise choise of wordes and with the fauorable approbation of readers, and so shall our plat in this one point be larger and much surmount that which Stanhurst first tooke in hand by his exameters dactilicke and spondaicke in the translation of Virgills Eneidos, and such as for a great number of them my stomacke can hardly digest for the ill shapen sound of many of his wordes polisillable and also his copulation of monosillables supplying the quantitie of a trisillable to his intent. And right so in promoting this deuise of ours being (I feare me) much more nyce and affected, and therefore more misliked then his, we are to bespeake fauour, first of the delicate eares, then of the rigorous and seuere dispositions, lastly to craue pardon of the learned & auncient makers in our vulgar, for if we should seeke in euery point to egall our speach with the Greeke and Latine in their metricall obseruations it could not possible be by vs perfourmed, because their sillables came to be timed some of them long, some of them short not by reason of any euident or apparent case in writing or sounde remaining vpon one more then another, for many times they shortned the sillable of sharpe accent and made long that of the flat, & therefore we must needes say, it was in many of their wordes done by preelection in the first Poetes, not hauing regard altogether to the ortographie, and hardnesse or softnesse of a sillable, consonant, vowell or dipthong, but at their pleasure, or as it fell out: so as he that first put in a vers this word [Penelope] which might be Homer or some other of his antiquitie, where he made [pe] in both places long and [ne] and [lo] short, he might haue made them otherwise and with as good reason, nothing in the world appearing that might moue them to make such (preelection) more in th'one sillable then in the other for pe. Ne and lo being sillables vocals be egally smooth and currant vpon the toung, and might beare aswel the long as the short time, but it pleased the Poet otherwise: so he that first shortned, ca in this word cano, and made long tro in troia, and o in oris, might haue aswell done the contrary, but because he that first put them into a verse, found as it is to be supposed a more sweetnesse in his owne eare to haue them so tymed, therefore all other Poets who followed, were fayne to doe the like, which made that Virgill who came many yeares after the first reception of wordes in their seuerall times, was driuen of necessitie to accept them in such quantities as they were left him and therefore said.

arma vi rumque ca no tro ie qui primus ab oris.

Neither truely doe I see any other reason in that lawe (though in other rules of shortning and prolonging a sillable there may be reason) but that it stands vpon bare tradition. Such as the Cabalists auouch in their mysticall constructions Theologicall and others, saying that they receaued the same from hand to hand from the first parent Adam, Abraham and others, which I will giue them leaue alone both to say and beleeue for me, thinking rather that they haue bene the idle occupations, or perchaunce the malitious and craftie constructions of the Talmudists, and others of the Hebrue clerks to bring the world into admiration of their lawes and Religion. Now peraduenture with vs Englishmen it be somewhat too late to admit a new inuention of feete and times that our forefathers neuer vsed nor neuer obserued till this day, either in their measures or in their pronunciation, and perchaunce will seeme in vs a presumptuous part to attempt, considering also it would be hard to find many men to like of one mans choise in the limitation of times and quantities of words, with which not one, but euery eare is to be pleased and made a particular iudge, being most truly sayd, that a multitude or comminaltie is hard to please and easie to offend, and therefore I intend not to proceed any further in this curiositie then to shew some small subtillitie that any other hath not yet done, and not by imitation but by obseruation, nor to th'intent to haue it put in execution in our vulgar Poesie, but to be pleasantly scanned vpon, as are all nouelties so friuolous and ridiculous as it.