e, least he my looue happely chaunce to beholde.

Seeme they comparable to those two which I translated you _ex tempore_
in bed, the last time we lay togither in Westminster?

That which I eate, did I ioy, and that which I greedily gorged;
As for those many goodly matters leaft I for others.

I would hartily wish you would either send me the rules and precepts of
arte which you obscrue in quantities, or else followe mine, that M.
Philip Sidney gave me, being the very same which M. Drant deuised, but
enlarged with M. Sidneys own iudgement, and augmented with my
obseruations, that we might both accorde and agree in one; leaste we
ouerthrowe one an other, and be ouerthrown of the rest. Truste me, you
will hardly beleeue what greate good liking and estimation Maister Dyer
had of your _Satyricall Verses_, and I, since the viewe thereof, hauing
before of my selfe had speciall liking of Englishe versifying, am euen
nowe aboute to giue you some token what and howe well therein I am able
to doe: for, to tell you trueth, I minde shortely, at conuenient
leysure, to sette forth a booke in this kinde, whyche I entitle,
_Epithalamion Thamesis_, whyche booke I dare vndertake wil be very
profitable for the knowledge, and rare for the inuention and manner of
handling. For in setting forth the marriage of the Thames, I shewe his
first beginning, and offspring, and all the countrey that he passeth
thorough, and also describe all the riuers throughout Englande, whyche
came to this wedding, and their righte names and right passage, &c.; a
worke, beleeue me, of much labour, wherein notwithstanding Master
Holinshed hath muche furthered and aduantaged me, who therein hath
bestowed singular paines in searching oute their firste heades and
sourses, and also in tracing and dogging onto all their course, til they
fall into the sea.

_O Tite, siquid ego,
Ecquid erit pretij?_

But of that more hereafter. Nowe, my _Dreames_ and _Dying Pellicane_
being fully finished (as I partelye signified in my laste letters) and
presentlye to bee imprinted, I wil in hande forthwith with my _Faery
Queene_, whyche I praye you hartily send me with al expedition: and your
frendly letters, and long expected judgement wythal, whyche let not be
shorte, but in all pointes suche as you ordinarilye vse and I
extraordinarily desire. _Multum vale. Westminster. Quarto Nonas
Aprilis, 1580. Sed, amabo te, meum Corculum tibi se ex animo commendat
plurimum: i