_Now gentill Sirs let this young maide alone,
For either she hath grace or els she hath none:
If she haue grace, she may in time repent,
If she haue none what bootes her punishment._
Or as another pleaded his deserts with his mistresse.
_Were it for grace, or els in hope of gaine,
To say of my deserts, it is but vaine:
For well in minde, in case ye do them beare,
To tell them oft, it should but irke your eare:
Be they forgot: as likely should I faile,
To winne with wordes, where deedes can not preuaile._
[Sidenote: _Merismus_, or the Distributer.]
Then haue ye a figure very meete for Orators or eloquent perswaders such
as our maker or Poet must in some cases shew him selfe to be, and is when
we may coueniently vtter a matter in one entier speach or proportion and
will rather do it peecemeale and by distrbution of euery part for
amplification sake, as for example he that might say, a house was
outragiously plucked downe: will not be satisfied so to say, but rather
will speake it in this sort: they first vndermined the groundsills, they
beate downe the walles, they vnfloored the loftes, they vntiled it and
pulled downe the roofe. For so in deede is a house pulled downe by
circumstances, which this figure of distribution doth set forth euery one
apart, and therefore I name him the _distributor_ according to his
originall, as wrate the _Tuscane_ Poet in a Sonet which Sir _Thomas Wyat_
translated with very good grace, thus.
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