rs fashion all their feete at the first to be
of sundry times, and the selfe same sillable to be sometime long and
sometime short for the eares better satisfaction as hath bene before
remembred. Now also wheras I said before that our old Saxon English for
his many _monosillables_ did not naturally admit the vse of the ancient
feete in our vulgar measures so aptly as in those languages which stood
most vpon _polisillables_, I sayd it in a sort truly, but now I must
recant and confesse that our Normane English which hath growen since
_William_ the Conquerour doth admit any of the auncient feete, by reason
of the many _polysillables_ euen to sixe and seauen in one word, which we
at this day vse in our most ordinarie language: and which corruption hath
bene occasioned chiefly by the peeuish affectation not of the Normans them
selues, but of clerks and scholars or secretaries long since, who not
content with the vsual Normane or Saxon word, would conuert the very
Latine and Greeke word into vulgar French, as to say innumerable for
innombrable, reuocable, irreuocable, irradiation, depopulation & such
like, which are not naturall Normane nor yet French, but altered Latines,
and without any imitation at all: which therefore were long time despised
for inkehorne termes, and now be reputed the best & most delicat of any
other. Of which & many other causes of corruption of our speach we haue in
another place more amply discoursed, but by this meane we may at this day
very well receiue the auncient feete _metricall_ of the Greeks and Latines
sauing those that be superfluous as be all the feete aboue the
_trissillable_, which the old Grammarians idly inuented and distinguisht
by speciall names, whereas in deede the same do stand compounded with the
inferiour feete, and therefore some of them were called by the names of
_didactilus_, _dispondeus_, and _disiambus:_ which feete as I say we may
be allowed to vse with good discretion & precise choise of wordes and with
the fauorable approbation of readers, and so shall our plat in this one
point be larger and much surmount that which _Stamhurst_ first tooke in
hand by his _exameters dactilicke_ and _spondaicke_ in the translation of
_Virgills Eneidos_, and such as for a great number of them my stomacke can
hardly digest for the ill shapen sound of many of his wordes
_polisillable_ and also his copulation of _monosillables_ supplying the
quantitie of a _trissillable_ to his intent. And right