And
as I can not denie but these conceits of mine be trifles: no lesse in very
deede be all the most serious studies of man, if we shall measure grauitie
and lightnesse by the wise mans ballance who after he had considered of
all the profoundest artes and studies among men, in th'ende cryed out with
this Epyphoneme, _Vanitas vanitatum & omnia vanitas_. Whose authoritie if
it were not sufficient to make me beleeue so, I could be content with
_Democritus_ rather to condemne the vanities of our life by derision, then
as _Heraclitus_ with teares, saying with that merrie Greeke thus,
_Omnia sunt risus, sunt puluis, & omnia nil sunt.
Res hominum cunctae, nam ratione carent._
Thus Englished,
_All is but a iest, all daft, all not worth two peason:
For why in mans matters is neither rime nor reason._
Now passing from these courtly trifles, let vs talke of our scholastical
toyes, that is of the Grammaticall versifying of the Greeks and Latines
and see whether it might be reduced into our English arte or no.
_CHAP. XII._
_How if all maner of sodaine innouatians were not very scandalous,
specially in the lawes of any langage or arte, the use of the Greeke and
Latine feete might be brought into our vulgar Poesie, and with good grace
enough._
Now neuerthelesse albeit we haue before alledged that our vulgar _Saxon
English_ standing most vpon wordes _monosillable_, and little vpon
_polysillables_ doth hardly admit the vse of those fine inuented feete of
the Greeks & Latines, and that for the most part wise and graue men doe
naturally mislike with all sodaine innouations specially of lawes (and
this the law of our auncient English Poesie) and therefore lately before
we imputed it to a nice & scholasticall curiositie in such makers as haue
fought to bring into our vulgar Poesie some of the auncient feete, to wit
the _Dactile_ into verses _exameters_, as he that translated certaine
bookes of _Virgils Eneydos_ in such measures & not vncommendably: if I
should now say otherwise it would make me seeme contradictorie to my
selfe, yet for the information of our yong makers, and pleasure of all
others who be delighted in noueltie, and to th'intent we may not seeme by
ignorance or ouersight to omit any point of subtillitie, materiall or
necessarie to our vulgar arte, we will in this present chapter & by our
own idle obseruations shew how one may easily and commodiously lead all
those feete of the auncients into our vulgar language.
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