Note neuerthelesse a diuersitie, for the two last examples be
prouerbs, the two first prouebiall speeches.
[Sidenote: _Ironia_, or the Drie mock.]
Ye doe likewise dissemble, when ye speake in derision or mokerie, & that
may be many waies: as sometime in sport, sometime in earnest, and priuily,
and apertly, and pleasantly, and bitterly: but first by the figure
_Ironia_, which we call the _drye mock_: as he that said to a bragging
Ruffian, that threatened he would kill and slay, no doubt you are a good
man of your hands: or, as it was said by a French king, to one that praide
his reward, shewing how he had bene cut in the face at a certain battell
fought in his seruice: ye may see, quoth the king, what it is to runne
away & looke backwards. And as _Alphonso_ king of Naples, said to one that
profered to take his ring when he washt before dinner, this wil serue
another well: meaning that the Gentlemen had another time taken them, &
becaufe the king forgot to aske for them, neuer restored his ring againe.
[Sidenote: _Sarcasmus_, or the Bitter taunt.]
Or when we deride with a certaine seueritie, we may call it the bitter
taunt [_Sarcasmus_] as _Charles_ the fift Emperour aunswered the Duke of
Arskot, beseeching him recompence of seruice done at the siege of Renty,
against _Henry_ the French king, where the Duke was taken prisoner, and
afterward escaped clad like a Colliar.
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