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Bvt all the world could not keepe, nor any ciuill ordinance to the
contrary so preuaile, but that men would and must needs vtter their
splenes in all ordinarie matters also: or else it seemed their bowels
would burst, therefore the poet deuised a prety fashioned poeme short and
sweete (as we are wont to say) and called it _Epigramma_ in which euery
mery conceited man might without any long studie or tedious ambage, make
his frend sport, and anger his foe, and giue a prettie nip, or shew a
sharpe conceit in few verses: for this _Epigramme_ is but an inscription
or writting made as it were vpon a table, or in a windowe, or vpon the
wall or mantel of a chimney in some place of common resort, where it was
allowed euery man might come, or be sitting to chat and prate, as now in
our tauernes and common tabling houses, where many merry heades meete, and
scrible with ynke with chalke, or with a cole such matters as they would
euery man should know, & descant vpon. Afterward the same came to be put
in paper and in bookes, and vsed as ordinarie missiues, some of frendship,
some of defiaunce, or as other messages of mirth: _Martiall_ was the
cheife of this skil among the Latines, & at ahese days the best Epigrames
we finde, & of the sharpest conceit are those that haue bene gathered
among the reliques of the two muet _Satyres_ in Rome, _Pasquill_ and
_Marphorir_, which in time of _Sede vacante_, when merry conceited men
listed to gibe & iest at the dead Pope, or any of his Cardinales, they
fastened them vpon those Images which now lie in the open streets, and
were tollerated, but after that terme expired they were inhibited againe.
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