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upon so much an esteemed authority, so that the next degree was to mark all Zelmane's doings, speeches, and fashions, and to take them into herself, as a pattern of worthy proceeding. Which when once it was enacted, not only by the commonalty of passions, but agreed unto by her most noble thoughts, and that reason itself, not yet experienced in the issues of such matters, had granted his royal assent; then friendship, a diligent officer, took care to see the statute thoroughly observed. Then grew on that not only she did imitate the soberness of her countenance, the gracefulness of her speech, but even their particular gestures: so that as Zelmane did often eye her, she would often eye Zelmane; and as Zelmane's eyes would deliver a submissive, but vehement desire in their look; she, though as yet she had not the desire in her, yet should her eyes answer in like piercing kindness of a look. Zelmane, as much as Gynecia's jealousy would suffer, desired to be near Philoclea; Philoclea, as much as Gynecia's jealousy would suffer, desired to be near Zelmane. If Zelmane took her hand, and softly strained it, she also, thinking the knots of friendship ought to be mutual, would, with a sweet fastness, shew she was loth to part from it. And if Zelmane sighed, she would sigh also; when Zelmane was sad, she deemed it wisdom, and therefore she would be sad too. Zelmane's languishing countenance with crossed arms, and sometimes cast up eyes, she thought to have an excellent grace: and therefore she also willingly put on the same countenance: 'till at the last, poor soul, e'er she was aware, she accepted not only the badge, but the service; not only the sign, but the passion signified.

BOOK V.

But Euarchus staid a good while upon himself, like a valiant man that should receive a noble encounter, being vehemently stricken with the fatherly love of so excellent children, and studying with his best reason, what his office required: at length with such a kind of gravity as was near to sorrow, he thus uttered his

mind: I take witness of the immortal gods, said he, O Arcadians, that what this day I have said, hath been out of my assured persuasion, what justice itself and your just laws require. Though strangers then to me, I had no desire to hurt them, but leaving aside all considerations of the persons, I weighed the matter which you committed into my hands, with my most unpartial and farthest reach of reason. And thereout have condemned them to lose their lives, contaminated with so many foul breaches of hospitality, civility, and virtue. Now contrary to all expectations, I find them to be my only son and nephew, such upon whom you see what gifts nature hath bestowed: such who have so to the wonder of the world heretofore behaved themselves, as might give just cause to the greatest hopes, that in an excellent youth may be conceived. Lastly, in few words, such in whom I placed all my mortal joys, and thought myself now near my grave, to recover a new life. But alas, shall justice halt? or shall she wink in one's cause, which had lynxes' eyes in another's; or rather shall all private respects give place to that holy name? be it so, be it so, let my gray hairs be laid in the dust with sorrow, let the small remnant of my life be to me an inward and outward desolation, and to the world a gazing stock of wretched misery but never, never, let sacred rightfulness fall: it is immortal, and immortally ought to be preserved. If rightly I have judged, then rightly I have judged mine own children: unless the name of a child should have force to change the never changing justice. No, no, Pyrocles and Musidorus, I prefer you much before my life, but I prefer justice as far before you: while you did like your selves, my body should willingly have been your shield, but I cannot keep you from the effects of your own doing: nay, I cannot in this case acknowledge you for mine: for never had I shepherd to my nephew, nor ever had woman to my son; your vices have degraded you from being princes, and have disannulled your birthright. Therefore if there be any thing left in you of princely virtue, shew it in constant suffering that your unprincely dealing hath purchased

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unto you. For my part I must tell you, you have forced a father to rob himself of his children. Do you therefore, O Philanax, and you my other lords of this country, see the judgment be rightly performed in time, place, and manner, as before appointed. With that though he would have refrained them, a man might perceive the tears drop down his long white beard.

THE DEFENCE OF POESY.

There is no art delivered unto mankind, that hath not the works of nature for his principal object, without which they could not consist, and on which they so depend, as they become actors and players, as it were, of what nature will have set forth. So doth the Astro

nomer look upon the stars, and by that he seeth, set down what order nature hath taken therein. So doth the Geometrician and Arithmetician, in their divers sorts of quantities. So doth the Musician, in times, tell you, which by nature agree, which not. The natural Philosopher thereon hath his name, and the moral Philosopher standeth upon the natural virtues, vices, or passions of man: and follow nature, saith he, therein, and thou shalt not err. The Lawyer saith what men have determined. The Historian what men have done. The Grammarian speaketh only of the rules of speech, and the Rhetorician and Logician, considering what in nature will soonest prove, and persuade thereon, give artificial rules, which still are compassed within the circle of a question, according to the proposed matter. The Physician weigheth the nature of man's body, and the nature of things helpful or hurtful unto it. And the Metaphysic, though it be in the second, and abstract notions, and therefore be counted supernatural, yet doth he, indeed, build upon the depth of nature. Only the Poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigour of his own invention, doth grow, in effect, into another nature in making things either better than nature bringeth forth, or quite anew, forms such as never were

in nature, as the Heroes, Demi-gods, Cyclops, Chimæras, Furies, and such like; so as he goeth hand in hand with nature, not inclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging within the zodiac of his own wit. Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done; neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too much loved. earth more lovely; her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden. But let those things alone, and go to Man, for whom, as the other things are, so it seemeth in him her uttermost cunning is employed, and know, whether she have brought forth so true a lover as Theagenes, so constant a friend as Pylades, so valiant a man as Orlando, so right a prince as Xenophon's Cyrus, and so excellent a man every way as Virgil's Æneas? Neither let this be jestingly conceived, because the works of the one be essential, the other in imitation or fiction; for every understanding knoweth the skill of each artificer standeth in that idea, or foreconceit of the work, and not in the work itself. And that the poet hath that idea, is manifest, by the delivering them forth in such excellency as he had imagined them; which delivering forth, also, is not wholly imaginative, as we were wont to say by them that build castles in the air; but so far substantially it worketh, not only to make a Cyrus, which had been but a particular excellency, as nature might have done, but to bestow a Cyrus upon the world to make many Cyrusses, if they will learn aright, why, and how that Maker made him. Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison, to balance the highest point of man's wit with the efficacy of nature; but rather give right honour to the heavenly Maker of that maker, who having made man to his own likeness, set him beyond, and over all the works of that second nature, which in nothing he shewed so much as in poetry, when, with the force of a divine breath, he bringeth things forth surpassing her doings, with no small arguments to the incredulous of that first accursed fall of Adam, since our erected wit maketh us know what perfection is,

and yet our infected will keepeth us from reaching unto it. But these arguments will by few be understood, and by fewer granted: thus much I hope will be given me, that the Greeks, with some probability of reason, gave him the name above all names of learning. Now let us go to a more ordinary opening of him, that the truth may be the more palpable; and so, I hope, though we get not so unmatched a praise as the etymology of his names will grant, yet his very description, which no man will deny, shall not justly be barred from a principal commendation. Poesy therefore is an art of imitation; for so Aristotle termeth it in the word uiunois, that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth, to speak metaphorically. A speaking picture, with this end, to teach and delight. Of this have been three general kinds; the chief, both in antiquity and excellency, were they that did imitate the unconceivable excellencies of God; such were David in his Psalms; Solomon in his Song of Songs, in his Ecclesiastes and Proverbs; Moses and Deborah in their hymns; and the writer of Job; which, besides others, the learned Emmanuel Tremellius, and Fr. Junius do intitle, the poetical part of the Scripture: against these none will speak that hath the Holy Ghost in due holy reverence. In this kind, though in a full wrong divinity, were Orpheus, Amphion, Homer in his Hymns, and many others, both Greeks and Romans. And this Poesy must be used by whosoever will follow St. Paul's counsel, in singing psalms when they are merry; and I know is used with the fruit of comfort by some, when, in sorrowful pangs of their death-bringing sins, they find the consolation of the never-leaving goodness. The second kind, is of them that deal with matter philosophical; either moral, as Tyrtæus, Phocylides, Cato; or natural, as Lucretius, and Virgil's Georgics; or astronomical, as Manilius and Pontanus; or historical, as Lucan; which who mislike, the fault is in their judgment, quite out of taste, and not in the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge. But because this second sort is wrapped within the fold of the proposed subject, and takes not

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