Philarete, or Lover of Virtue, there is a sort of propriety in that
heaped measure of perfections which he attributes to this partly
real, partly allegorical personage. Drayton before him had shadowed
his mistress under the name of Idea, or Perfect Pattern, and some of
the old Italian love-strains are couched in such religious terms as
to make it doubtful whether it be a mistress, or Divine Grace, which
the poet is addressing.

In this poem (full of beauties) there are two passages of preeminent
merit. The first is where the lover, after a flight of rapturous
commendation, expresses his wonder why all men that are about his
mistress, even to her very servants, do not view her with the same
eyes that he does.

"Sometime I do admire
All men burn not with desire:
Nay, I muse her servants are not
Pleading love; but 0! they dare not.
And I therefore wonder, why
They do not grow sick and die.
Sure they would do so, but that,
By the ordinance of fate,
There is some concealed thing,
So each gazer limiting,
He can see no more of merit,
Than beseems his worth and spirit.
For in her a grace there shines,
That o'er-daring thoughts confines,
Making worthless men despair
To be loved of one so fair.
Yea, the destinies agree,
Some _good judgments_ blind should be,
And not gain the power of knowing
Those rare beauties in her growing.
Reason doth as much imply:
For, if every judging eye,
Which beholdeth her, should there
Find what excellences are,
All, o'ercome by those perfections,
Would be captive to affections.
So, in happiness unblest,
She for lovers should not rest."

The other is, where he has been comparing her beauties to gold, and
stars, and the most excellent things in nature; and, fearing to be
accused of hyperbole, the common charge against poets, vindicates
himself by boldly taking upon him, that these comparisons are no
hyperboles; but that the best things in nature do, in a lover's eye,
fall short of those excellences which he adores in her.

"What pearls, what rubies can
Seem so lovely fair to man,
As her lips whom he doth love,
When in sweet discourse they move,
Or her lovelier teeth, the while
She doth bless him with a smile?
Stars indeed fair creatures be;
Yet amongst us where is he
Joys not more the whilst he lies
Sunning in his mistress' eyes,
Than in all the glimmering light
Of a starry winter's night?
Not