ayes to abuse the
superstitious people, and to encumber their busie braynes with vaine hope
or vaine feare.

_Lucretius_ the merry Greeke reciteth a great number of them, deuised by a
coosening companion one _Alexander_, to get himselfe the name and
reputation of the God _Aesculapius_, and in effect all our old Brittish
and Saxon prophesies be of the same sort, that turne them on which side ye
will, the matter of them may be verified, neuerthelesse carryeth generally
such force in the heades of fonde people, that by the comfort of those
blind prophecies many insurrections and rebellions have bene stirred vp in
this Realme, as that of _Iacke Straw & Iacke Cade_ in _Richard_ the
seconds time, and in our time by a seditious fellow in Norffolke calling
himself Captaine Ket and others in other places of the Realme lead
altogether by certaine propheticall rymes, which might be construed two or
three wayes as well as to that one whereunto the rebelles applied it: our
maker shall therefore auoyde all such ambiguous speaches vnlesse it be
when he doth it for the nonce and for some purpose.

_CHAP. XXIII._

_What it is that generally makes our speach well pleasing & commeniable
and of that which the Latines call Decorum._

In all things to vse decencie, is it onely that giueth euery thing his
good grace & without which nothing in mans speach could seeme good or
gracious, in so much as many times it makes a bewtifull figure fall into
deformitie, and on th'other side a vicious speach seeme pleasaunt and
bewtifull: this decencie is therfore the line & leuell for al good makers
to do their busines by. But herein resteth the difficultie to know what
this good grace is, & wherein it confitted, for peraduenture it be easier
to conceaue then to expresse, we wil therfore examine it to the bottome &
say: that euery thing which pleaseth the mind or sences, & the mind by the
sences as by means instrumentall, doth it for some amiable point or
qualitie that is in it, which draweth them to a good liking and
contentment with their proper obiects. But that cannot be if they discouer
any illfauorednesse or disproportion to the partes apprehensiue, as for
example, when a sound is either too loude or too low or otherwise confuse,
the eare is ill affected: so is th'eye if the coulour be sad or not
liminous and recreatiue, or the shape of a membred body without his due
measures and simmetry, and the like of euery other sence in his prope