1.2. That there may be an Art of our English Poesie, as well as there is of the Latine and Greeke.
Then as there was no art in the world till by experience found out: so if
Poesie be now an Art, & of al antiquitie hath bene among the Greeks and
Latines, & yet were none, vntill by studious persons fashioned and
reduced into a method of rules & precepts, then no doubt may there be
the like with vs. And if th'art of Poesie be but a skill appertaining to
vtterance, why may not the same be with vs aswel as with them, our
language being no less copious pithie and significatiue then theirs, our
concepts the same, and our wits no less apt to deuise and imitate then theirs
were? If againe Art be but a certaine order of rules prescribed by reason,
and gathered by experience, why should not Poesie be a vulgar Art with vs
aswell as with the Greeks and Latines, our language admitting no fewer
rules and nice diuersities then theirs? but peraduenture moe by a peculiar,
which our speech hath in many things differing from theirs: and yet in the
generall points of that Art, allowed to go in common with them: so as if one
point perchance which is their feete whereupon their measures stand, and in
deede is all the beautie of their Poesie, and which feete we haue not, nor as
yet neuer went about to frame (the nature of our language and wordes not
permitting it) we haue in stead thereof twentie other curious points in that
skill more then they euer had, by reason of our rime and tunable concords or
simphonie, which they neuer obserued. Poesie therefore may be an Art in
our vulgar, and that verie methodicall and commendable.