ade infamous in the mouths
of all men; for their verses are taken up with a general applause,
and usually sung at all feasts and meetings, by certain other persons,
whose proper function that is, who also receive, for the same, great
rewardes and reputation amongst them." Spenser, having bestowed due
praise upon the poets, who sung the praises of the good and virtuous,
informs us, that the bards, on the contrary, "seldom use to chuse unto
themselves the doings of good men for the arguments of their poems;
but whomsoever they finde to be most licentious of life, most bold and
lawless in his doings, most dangerous and desperate in all parts of
disobedience, and rebellious disposition, him they set up and glorify
in their rhythmes; him they praise to the people, and to young men
make an example to follow."--_Eudoxus_--"I marvail what kind of
speeches they can find, or what faces they can put on, to praise such
bad persons, as live so lawlessly and licentiously upon stealths and
spoyles, as most of them do; or how they can think, that any good
mind will applaud or approve the same." In answer to this question,
_Irenaeus_, after remarking the giddy and restless disposition of the
ill educated youth of Ireland, which made them prompt to receive evil
counsel, adds, that such a person, "if he shall find any to praise
him, and to give him any encouragement, as those bards and rhythmers
do, for little reward, or a share of a stolen cow[60], then waxeth he
most insolent, and half-mad, with the love of himself and his own lewd
deeds. And as for words to set forth such lewdness, it is not hard for
them to give a goodly and painted show thereunto, borrowed even from
the praises which are proper to virtue itself. As of a most notorious
thief, and wicked outlaw, which had lived all his life-time of spoils
and robberies, one of their bardes, in his praise, will say, 'that he
was none of the idle milk-sops that was brought up by the fire-side,
but that most of his days he spent in arms and valiant enterprizes;
that he never did eat his meat, before he had won it with his sword;
that he lay not all night slugging in his cabin under his mantle, but
used commonly to keep others waking to defend their lives, and did
light his candle at the flames of their houses to lead him in the
darkness; that the day was his night, and the night his day; that he
loved not to be long wooing of wenches to yield to him; but, where
he came, he took by force th