) being vsed for mans solace and recreation it may well be
allowed, for as I said before, Poesie is a pleasant maner of vtterance
varying from the ordinarie of purpose to refresh the mynde by the eares
delight. Poesie also is not onely laudable, because I said it was a
metricall speach vsed by the first men, but because it is a metricall
speech corrected and reformed by discreet iudgements, and with no lesse
cunning and curiositie than the Greeke and Latine Poesie, and by Art
bewtified & adorned, & brought far from the primitiue rudenesse of the
first inuentors, otherwise it might be sayd to me that _Adam_ and _Eues_
apernes were the gayest garmentes, because they were the first, and the
shepheardes tente or pauillion, the best housing, because it was the most
auncient & most vniversall: which I would not haue so taken, for it is not
my meaning but that Art & cunning concurring with nature, antiquitie &
vniuersalitie, in things indifferent, and not euill, doe make them more
laudable. And right so our vulgar riming Poesie, being by good wittes
brought to that perfection we see, is worthily to be preferred before any
other matter of vtterance in prose, for such vse and to such purpose as it
is ordained, and shall hereafter be set downe more particularly.

_CHAP. X._

_The subiect or matter of Poesie._

Hauing sufficiently sayd of the dignitie of Poets and Poesie, now it is
tyme to speake of the matter or subiect of Poesie, which to myne intent
is, what soeuer wittie and delicate conceit of man meet or worthy to be
put in written verse, for any necessary use of the present time, or good
instruction of the posteritie. But the chief and principall is: the laud
honour & glory of the immortall gods (I speake now in phrase of the
Gentiles.) Secondly the worthy gests of noble Princes: the memoriall and
registry of all great fortunes, the praise of vertue & reproofe of vice,
the instruction of morall doctrines, the reuealing of sciences naturall &
other profitable Arts, the redresse of boistrous & sturdie courages by
perswasion, the consolation and repose of temperate myndes, finally the
common solace of mankind in all his trauails and cares of this transitorie
life. And in this last sort being vsed for recreation onely, may allowably
beare matter not alwayes of the grauest, or of any great commoditie or
profit, but rather in some sort, vaine, dissolute, or wanton, so it be not
very scandalous & of euill example. But a