A Defence of Poesie and Poems
them well, we shall find, that they never, or very daintily, match
horn-pipes and funerals. So falleth it out, that having indeed no right
comedy in that comical part of our tragedy, we have nothing but
scurrility, unworthy of any chaste ears; or some extreme show of
doltishness, indeed fit to lift up a loud laughter, and nothing else;
where the whole tract of a comedy should be full of delight; as the
tragedy should be still maintained in a well-raised admiration.
But our comedians think there is no delight without laughter, which is
very wrong; for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not
of delight, as though delight should be the cause of laughter; but well
may one thing breed both together. Nay, in themselves, they have, as it
were, a kind of contrariety. For delight we scarcely do, but in things
that have a conveniency to ourselves, or to the general nature. Laughter
almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and
nature: delight hath a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter
hath only a scornful tickling. For example: we are ravished with delight
to see a fair woman, and yet are far from being moved to laughter; we
laugh at deformed creatures, wherein certainly we cannot delight; we
delight in good chances; we laugh at mischances; we delight to hear the
happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy to be
laughed at that would laugh: we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh to
find a matter quite mistaken, and go down the hill against the bias, {87}
in the mouth of some such men, as for the respect of them, one shall be
heartily sorrow he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than
delighted with laughter. Yet deny I not, but that they may go well
together; for, as in Alexander’s picture well set out, we delight without
laughter, and in twenty mad antics we laugh without delight: so in
Hercules, painted with his great beard and furious countenance, in a
woman’s attire, spinning at Omphale’s commandment, it breeds both delight
and laughter; for the representing of so strange a power in love procures
delight, and the scornfulness of the action stirreth laughter.
But I speak to this purpose, that all the end of the comical part be not
upon such scornful matters as stir laughter only, but mix with it that
delightful teaching which is the end of poesy. And the great fault, even
in that point of laughter, and forbidden plainly by Aristotle, is, that
they stir laughter in sinful things, which are rather execrable than
ridiculous; or in miserable, which are rather to be pitied than scorned.
For what is it to make folks gape at a wretched beggar, and a beggarly
clown; or against the law of hospitality, to jest at strangers, because
they speak not English so well as we do? what do we learn, since it is
certain,
“Nil habet infelix pauperatas durius in se,
Quam qnod ridiculos, homines facit.” {88}
But rather a busy loving courtier, and a heartless threatening Thraso; a
self-wise seeming school-master; a wry-transformed traveller: these, if
we saw walk in stage names, which we play naturally, therein were
delightful laughter, and teaching delightfulness: as in the other, the
tragedies of Buchanan {89} do justly bring forth a divine admiration.
But I have lavished out too many words of this play matter; I do it,
because, as they are excelling parts of poesy, so is there none so much
used in England, and none can be more pitifully abused; which, like an
unmannerly daughter, showing a bad education, causeth her mother Poesy’s
honesty to be called in question.
Other {90} sorts of poetry, almost, have we none, but that lyrical kind
of songs and sonnets, which, if the Lord gave us so good minds, how well
it might be employed, and with how heavenly fruits, both private and
public, in singing the praises of the immortal beauty, the immortal
goodness of that God, who giveth us hands to write, and wits to conceive;
of which we might well want words, but never matter; of which we could
turn our eyes to nothing, but we should ever have new budding occasions.
But, truly, many of such writings as come under the banner of
unresistible love, if I were a mistress, would never persuade me they
were in love; so coldly they apply fiery speeches, as men that had rather
read lover’s writings, and so caught up certain swelling phrases, which
hang together like a man that once told me, “the wind was at north-west
and by south,” because he would be sure to name winds enough; than that,
in truth, they feel those passions, which easily, as I think, may be
bewrayed by the same forcibleness, or “energia” (as the Greeks call it),
of the writer. But let this be a sufficient, though short note, that we
miss the right use of the material point of poesy.
Now {91} for the outside of it, which is words, or (as I may term it)
diction, it is even well worse; so is that honey-flowing matron
eloquence, apparelled, or rather disguised, in a courtesan-like painted
affectation. One time with so far-fetched words, that many seem
monsters, but most seem strangers to any poor Englishman: another time
with coursing of a letter, as if they were bound to follow the method of
a dictionary: another time with figures and flowers, extremely
winter-starved.
But I would this fault were only peculiar to versifiers, and had not as
large possession among prose printers: and, which is to be marvelled,
among many scholars, and, which is to be pitied, among some preachers.
Truly, I could wish (if at least I might be so bold to wish, in a thing
beyond the reach of my capacity) the diligent imitators of Tully and
Demosthenes, most worthy to be imitated, did not so much keep Nizolian
paper-books {92} of their figures and phrases, as by attentive
translation, as it were, devour them whole, and make them wholly theirs.
For now they cast sugar and spice upon every dish that is served at the
table: like those Indians, not content to wear ear-rings at the fit and
natural place of the ears, but they will thrust jewels through their nose
and lips, because they will be sure to be fine.
Tully, when he was to drive out Catiline, as it were with a thunderbolt
of eloquence, often useth the figure of repetition, as “vivit et vincit,
imo in senatum venit, imo in senatum venit,” &c. {93} Indeed, inflamed
with a well-grounded rage, he would have his words, as it were, double
out of his mouth; and so do that artificially which we see men in choler
do naturally. And we, having noted the grace of those words, hale them
in sometimes to a familiar epistle, when it were too much choler to be
choleric.
How well, store of “similiter cadences” doth sound with the gravity of
the pulpit, I would but invoke Demosthenes’ soul to tell, who with a rare
daintiness useth them. Truly, they have made me think of the sophister,
that with too much subtlety would prove two eggs three, and though he may
be counted a sophister, had none for his labour. So these men bringing
in such a kind of eloquence, well may they obtain an opinion of a seeming
fineness, but persuade few, which should be the end of their fineness.
Now for similitudes in certain printed discourses, I think all
herbalists, all stories of beasts, fowls, and fishes are rifled up, that
they may come in multitudes to wait upon any of our conceits, which
certainly is as absurd a surfeit to the ears as is possible. For the
force of a similitude not being to prove anything to a contrary disputer,
but only to explain to a willing hearer: when that is done, the rest is a
most tedious prattling, rather overswaying the memory from the purpose
whereto they were applied, than any whit informing the judgment, already
either satisfied, or by similitudes not to be satisfied.
For my part, I do not doubt, when Antonius and Crassus, the great
forefathers of Cicero in eloquence; the one (as Cicero testifieth of
them) pretended not to know art, the other not to set by it, because with
a plain sensibleness they might win credit of popular ears, which credit
is the nearest step to persuasion (which persuasion is the chief mark of
oratory); I do not doubt, I say, but that they used these knacks very
sparingly; which who doth generally use, any man may see, doth dance to
his own music; and so to be noted by the audience, more careful to speak
curiously than truly. Undoubtedly (at least to my opinion undoubtedly) I
have found in divers small-learned courtiers a more sound style than in
some professors of learning; of which I can guess no other cause, but
that the courtier following that which by practice he findeth fittest to
nature, therein (though he know it not) doth according to art, though not
by art: where the other, using art to show art, and not hide art (as in
these cases he should do), flieth from nature, and indeed abuseth art.
But what! methinks I deserve to be pounded {94} for straying from poetry
to oratory: but both have such an affinity in the wordish considerations,
that I think this digression will make my meaning receive the fuller
understanding: which is not to take upon me to teach poets how they
should do, but only finding myself sick among the rest, to allow some one
or two spots of the common infection grown among the most part of
writers; that, acknowledging ourselves somewhat awry, we may bend to the
right use both of matter and manner: whereto our language giveth us great
occasion, being, indeed, capable of any excellent exercising of it. {95}
I know some will say, it is a mingled language: and why not so much the
better, taking the best of both the other? Another will say, it wanteth
grammar. Nay, truly, it hath that praise, that it wants not grammar; for
grammar it might have, but needs it not; being so easy in itself, and so
void of those cumbersome differences of cases, genders, moods, and
tenses; which, I think, was a piece of the tower of Babylon’s curse, that
a man should be put to school to learn his mother tongue. But for the
uttering sweetly and properly the conceit of the mind, which is the end
of speech, that hath it equally with any other tongue in the world, and
is particularly happy in compositions of two or three words together,
near the Greek, far beyond the Latin; which is one of the greatest
beauties can be in a language.
Now, {96} of versifying there are two sorts, the one ancient, the other
modern; the ancient marked the quantity of each syllable, and according
to that framed his verse; the modern, observing only number, with some
regard of the accent, the chief life of it standeth in that like sounding
of the words, which we call rhyme. Whether of these be the more
excellent, would bear many speeches; the ancient, no doubt more fit for
music, both words and time observing quantity; and more fit lively to
express divers passions, by the low or lofty sound of the well-weighed
syllable. The latter, likewise, with his rhyme striketh a certain music
to the ear; and, in fine, since it doth delight, though by another way,
it obtaineth the same purpose; there being in either, sweetness, and
wanting in neither, majesty. Truly the English, before any vulgar
language I know, is fit for both sorts; for, for the ancient, the Italian
is so full of vowels, that it must ever be cumbered with elisions. The
Dutch so, of the other side, with consonants, that they cannot yield the
sweet sliding fit for a verse. The French, in his whole language, hath
not one word that hath his accent in the last syllable, saving two,
called antepenultima; and little more, hath the Spanish, and therefore
very gracelessly may they use dactiles. The English is subject to none
of these defects.
Now for rhyme, though we do not observe quantity, we observe the accent