lso their vse and best application, & what portion in exornation
euery of them bringeth to the bewtifying of this Arte.

_CHAP. IIII._

_Of Language._

Speach is not naturall to man sauing for his onely habilitie to speake,
and that he is by kinde apt to vtter all his conceits with sounds and
voyces diuersified many maner of wayes, by meanes of the many & fit
instruments he hath by nature to that purpose, as a broad and voluble
tong, thinne and mouable lippes, teeth euen and not shagged; thick ranged,
a round vaulted pallate, and a long throte, besides an excellent capacitie
of wit that maketh him more disciplinable and imitative than any other
creature: then as to the forme and action of his speach, it commeth to him
by arte & teaching, and by vse or exercise. But after a speach is fully
fashioned to the common vnderstanding, & accepted by consent of a whole
countrey & nation, it is called a language, & receaueth none allowed
alteration, but by extraordinary occasions by little & little, as it were
insensibly bringing in of many corruptions that creepe along with the
time: of all which matters, we haue more largely spoken in our bookes of
the originals and pedigree of the English tong. Then when I say language,
I meane the speach wherein the Poet or maker writeth be it Greek or Latine
or as our case is the vulgar English, & when it is peculiar vnto a
countrey it is called the mother speach of that people: the Greekes terme
it _Idioma_: so is ours at this day the Norman English. Before the
Conquest of the Normans it was the Anglesaxon and before that the British,
which as some will, is at this day, the Walsh, or as others affirme the
Cornish: I for my part thinke neither of both, as they be now spoken and
ponounced. This part in our maker or Poet must be heedyly looked vnto,
that it be naturall, pure, and the most vsuall of all his countrey: and
for the same purpose rather that which is spoken in the kings Court, or in
the good townes and Cities within the land, then in the marches and
frontiers, or in port townes, where straungers haunt for traffike sake, or
yet in Vniuersities where Schollers vse much peeuish affectation of words
out of the primatiue languages, or finally, in any vplandish village or
corner of a Realme, where is no resort but of poore rusticall or vnciuill
people: neither shall he follow the speach of a craftes man or carter, or
other of the inferiour sort, though he be inhabitant or bred i