hat euer were deuised by one or other,
howe admirable or super excellent soeuer they seemed otherwise to the
worlde. And truely I am so confirmed in this opinion, that when I
bethinke me of the verie notablest and moste wonderful propheticall or
poeticall vision that euer I read, or hearde, meseemeth the proportion
is so vnequall, that there hardly appeareth anye semblaunce of
comparison: no more in a manner (specially for poets) than doth betweene
the incomprehensible wisedome of God and the sensible wit of man. But
what needeth this digression betweene you and me? I dare saye you wyll
holde your selfe reasonably wel satisfied, if youre Dreames be but as
well esteemed of in Englande as Petrarches Visions be in Italy; whiche,
I assure you, is the very worst I wish you. But see how I haue the arte
memoratiue at commaundement. In good faith, I had once again nigh
forgotten your Faerie Queene: howbeit, by good chaunce, I haue nowe sent
hir home at the laste, neither in better nor worse case than I founde
hir. And must you of necessitie haue my iudgement of hir indeede? To be
plaine, I am voyde of al iudgement, if your nine Comoedies, whervnto, in
imitation of Herodotus, you giue the names of the nine Muses, (and in
one mans fansie not vnworthily), come not neerer Ariostoes comoedies,
eyther for the finesse of plausible elocution or the rarenesse of
poetical inuention, than that Eluish Queene doth to his Orlando Furioso;
which, notwithstanding, you wil needes seeme to emulate, and hope to
ouergo, as you flatly professed yourself in one of your last letters.
Besides that, you know, it hath bene the vsual practise of the most
exquisite and odde wittes in all nations, and specially in Italie,
rather to shewe and aduaunce themselues that way than any other; as,
namely, those three notorious dyscoursing heads, Bibiena, Machiauel, and
Aretine, did, (to let Bembo and Ariosto passe,) with the great
admiration and wonderment of the whole countrey: being, in deede,
reputed matchable in all points, both for conceyt of witte and eloquent
decyphering of matters, either with Aristophanes and Menander in Greek,
or with Plautus and Terence in Latin, or with any other in any other
tong. But I wil not stand greatly with you in your owne matters. If so
be the Faerye Queeue be fairer in your eie than the nine Muses, and
Hobgoblin runne away with the garland from Apollo, marke what I saye:
and yet I will not say that I thought, but there an end f