and to hie matters, stile
eyther meane or base, and to the base matters, the meane or hie stile, do
vtterly disgrace their poesie and shew themselues nothing skilfull in
their arte, nor hauing regard to the decencie, which is the chiefe praise
of any writer. Therefore to ridde all louers of learning from that errour,
I will as neere as I can set downe, which matters be hie and loftie, which
be but meane, and which be low and base, to the intent the stiles may be
fashioned to the matters, and keepe their _decorum_ and good proportion in
euery respect: I am not ignorant that many good clerkes be contrary to
mine opinion, and say that the loftie style may be decently vsed in a
meane and base subiect & contrariwise, which I do in parte acknowledge,
but with a reasonable qualification. For _Homer_ hath so vsed it in his
trifling worke of _Batrachomyomachia_: that is in his treatise of the
warre betwixt the frogs and the mice. _Virgill_ also in his _bucolickes_,
and in his _georgicks_, whereof the one is counted meane, the other base,
that is the husbandmans discourses and the shepheards, but hereunto
serueth a reason in my simple conceite: for first to that trifling poeme
of _Homer_, though the frog and the mouse be but litle and ridiculous
beasts, yet to treat of warre is an high subiect, and a thing in euery
respect terrible and daungerous to them that it alights on: and therefore
of learned dutie asketh martiall grandiloquence, if it be set foorth in
his kind and nature of warre, euen betwixt the basest creatures that can
be imagined: so also is the Ante or pismire, and they be but little
creeping things, not perfect beasts, but _insects_, or wormes: yet in
describing their nature & instinct, and their manner of life approching to
the forme of a common-welth, and their properties not vnlike to the
vertues of most excellent gouernors and captaines, it asketh a more
maiestie of speach then would the description of any other beastes life or
nature, and perchance of many matters perteyning vnto the baser sort of
men, because it resembleth the historie of a ciuill regiment, and of them
all the chiefs and most principall which is _Monarchie_: so also in his
_bucolicks_, which are but pastorall, speaches and the basest of any other
poeme in their owne proper nature: _Virgill_ vsed a somewhat swelling
stile when he came to insinuate the birth of _Marcellus_ heire apparant to
the Emperour _Augustus_, as child to his sister, aspiring