Of which & many other causes of corruption of our speach we haue in
another place more amply discoursed, but by this meane we may at this day
very well receiue the auncient feete _metricall_ of the Greeks and Latines
sauing those that be superfluous as be all the feete aboue the
_trissillable_, which the old Grammarians idly inuented and distinguisht
by speciall names, whereas in deede the same do stand compounded with the
inferiour feete, and therefore some of them were called by the names of
_didactilus_, _dispondeus_, and _disiambus:_ which feete as I say we may
be allowed to vse with good discretion & precise choise of wordes and with
the fauorable approbation of readers, and so shall our plat in this one
point be larger and much surmount that which _Stamhurst_ first tooke in
hand by his _exameters dactilicke_ and _spondaicke_ in the translation of
_Virgills Eneidos_, and such as for a great number of them my stomacke can
hardly digest for the ill shapen sound of many of his wordes
_polisillable_ and also his copulation of _monosillables_ supplying the
quantitie of a _trissillable_ to his intent. And right so in promoting
this deuise of ours being (I feare me) much more nyce and affected, and
therefore more misliked then his, we are to bespeake fauour, first of the
delicate eares, then of the rigorous and seuere dispositions, lastly to
craue pardon of the learned & auncient makers in our vulgar, for if we
should seeke in euery point to egall our speach with the Greeke and Latin
in their _metricall_ observations it could not possible be by vs
perfourmed, because their sillables came to be timed some of them long,
some of them short not by reason of any euident or apparant cause in
writing or sounde remaining vpon one more then another, for many times
they shortned the sillable of sharpe accent and made long that of the
flat, & therefore we must needes say, it was in many of their wordes done
by preelection in the first Poetes, not hauing regard altogether to the
_ortographie_, and hardnesse or softnesse of a sillable, consonant, vowell
or dipthong, but at their pleasure, or as it fell out: so as he that first
put in a verse this word [_Penelope_] which might be _Homer_ or some other
of his antiquitie, where he made [_pe-_] in both places long and [_ne`_]
and [_lo`_] short, he might haue made them otherwise and with as good
reason, nothing in the world appearing that might moue them to make such
(preelection) more in th'one sillable then in the other for _pe_,
_ne_, and _lo_, being sillables vocals be egally smoth and currant vpon
the toung, and might beare aswel the long as the short time, but it
pleased the Poet otherwise: so he that first shortned, _ca_, in this word
_cano_, and made long _tro_, in _troia_, and _o_, in _oris_, might haue
aswell done the contrary, but because he that first put them into a verse,
found as it is to be supposed a more sweetnesse in his owne eare to haue
them so tymed, therefore all other Poets who followed, were fayne to doe
the like, which made that _Virgill_ who came many yeares after the first
reception of wordes in their seuerall times, was driuen of neceisiitie to
accept them in such quantities as they were left him and therefore said.
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