is
the very rule of iustice till it be peruerted by affection. This no doubt
is true and was by them grauely considered: but in this case because our
maker or Poet is appointed not for a iudge but rather for a pleader, and
that of pleasant & louely causes and nothing perillous, such as be those
for the triall of life, limme, or liuelyhood; and before iudges neither
sower nor seuere, but in the care of princely dames, yong ladies,
gentlewomen and courtiers, beyng all for the most part either meeke of
nature, or of pleasant humour, and that all his abuses tende but to
dispose the hearers to mirth and sollace by pleasant conueyance and
efficacy of speach, they are not in truth to be accompted vices but for
vertues in the poetical science very commendable. On the other side, such
trespasses in speach (whereof there be many) as geue dolour and disliking
to the eare & minde, by any foule indecencie or disproportion of sound,
situation, or sence, they be called and not without cause the vicious
parts or rather heresies of language: wherefore the matter resteth much in
the definition and acceptance of this word [_decorum_] for whatsoeuer is
so, cannot iustly be misliked. In which respect it may come to passe that
what the Grammarian setteth downe for a viciositee in speach may become a
vertue and no vice, contrariwise his commended figure may fall into a
reprochfull fault: the best and most assured remedy whereof is, generally
to follow the saying of _Bias: ne quid nimis_. So as in keeping measure,
and not exceeding nor shewing any defect in the vse of his figures, he
cannot lightly do amisse, if he haue besides (as that must needes be) a
speciall regard to all circumstances of the person, place, time, cause and
purpose he hath in hand, which being well obserued it easily auoideth all
the recited inconueniences, and maketh now and then very vice goe for a
formall virtue in the excrcise of this Arte.

_CHAP. VIII._

_Sixe pointes set downe by our learned forefathers for a generall
regiment of all good vtterance be it by mouth or by writing._

Bvt before there had bene yet any precise obseruation made of figuratiue
speeches, the first learned artificers of language considered that the
bewtie and good grace of vtterance rested in no many pointes: and
whatsoeuer transgressed those lymits, they counted it for vitious; and
thereupon did set downe a manner of regiment in all speech generally to be
obserued, consisting in