tioner in poetry that found there was no good to
be done without a mistress; for he that writes of love before he hath
tried it doth but travel by the map, and he that makes love without a
dame does like a gamester that plays for nothing. He thought it
convenient, therefore, first to furnish himself with a name for his
mistress beforehand, that he might not be to seek when his merit or good
fortune should bestow her upon him; for every poet is his mistress's
godfather, and gives her a new name, like a nun that takes orders. He
was very curious to fit himself with a handsome word of a tunable sound,
but could light upon none that some poet or other had not made use of
before. He was therefore forced to fall to coining, and was several
months before he could light on one that pleased him perfectly. But
after he had overcome that difficulty he found a greater remaining, to
get a lady to own him. He accosted some of all sorts, and gave them to
understand, both in prose and verse, how incomparably happy it was in
his power to make his mistress, but could never convert any of them. At
length he was fain to make his laundress supply that place as a proxy
until his good fortune or somebody of better quality would be more kind
to him, which after a while he neither hoped nor cared for; for how mean
soever her condition was before, when he had once pretended to her she
was sure to be a nymph and a goddess. For what greater honour can a
woman be capable of than to be translated into precious stones and
stars? No herald in the world can go higher. Besides, he found no man
can use that freedom of hyperbole in the character of a person commonly
known (as great ladies are) which we can in describing one so obscure
and unknown that nobody can disprove him. For he that writes but one
sonnet upon any of the public persons shall be sure to have his reader
at every third word cry out, "What an ass is this to call Spanish paper
and ceruse lilies and roses, or claps influences; to say the Graces are
her waiting-women, when they are known to be no better than her bawds;
that day breaks from her eyes when she looks asquint; or that her breath
perfumes the Arabian winds when she puffs tobacco!"

It is no mean art to improve a language, and find out words that are not
only removed from common use, but rich in consonants, the nerves and
sinews of speech; to raise a soft and feeble language like ours to the
pitch of High-Dutch, as he did that writ-