me, God let me neuer thriue._

For performe not: and this vice is sometime tollerable inough, but if the
word carry any notable sence, it is a vice not tollerable, as he that said
praising a woman for her red lippes, thus:
_A corrall lippe of hew._

Which is no good speech, because either he should haue sayd no more but a
corrall lip, which had bene inough to declare the rednesse or els he
should haue said a lip of corrall hew, and not a corrall lip of hew. Now
if this disorder be in a whole clause which carieth more sentence then a
word, it is then worst of all.

[Sidenote: _Acyron_, or the Vncouthe.]
Ye haue another vicious speech which the Greeks call _Acyron_, we call it
the _vncouthe_, and is when we vse an obscure and darke word, and vtterly
repugnant to that we would expresse, if it be not by vertue of the figures
_metaphore, allegorie, abusion_, or such other laudable figure before
remembred, as he that said by way of _Epithete_.
_A dongeon deep, a dampe as darke as hell._

Where it is euident that a dampe being but a breath or vapour, and not to
be discerned by the eye, ought not to haue this _epithete (darke,)_ no
more then another that praysing his mistresse for her bewtifull haire,
said very improperly and with an vncouth terme.
_Her haire surmounts Apollos pride,
In it such bewty raignes._

Whereas this word _raigne_ is ill applied to the bewtie of a womans haire,
and might better haue bene spoken of her whole person, in which bewtie,
fauour, and good grace, may perhaps in some sort be said to raigne as our
selues wrate, in a _Partheniade_ praising her Maiesties countenance, thus:
_A cheare where loue and Maiestie do raigne,
Both milde and sterne, &c._

Because this word Maiestie is a word expressing a certaine Soueraigne
dignitie, as well as a quallitie of countenance, and therefore may
properly be said to _raigne_, & requires no meaner a word to set him
foorth by. So it is not of the bewtie that remaines in a womans haire, or
in her hand or any other member: therfore when ye see all these unproper
or harde Epithets vsed, ye may put them in the number of [_uncouths_] as
one that said, the _flouds of graces_: I haue heard of _the flouds of
teares_, and _the flouds of eloquence_, or of any thing that may resemble
the nature of a water-course, and in that respect we say also, _the
streames of teares_, and _the streames of utterance_, but not _the
streames of graces_, or of _beautie_. Suc