_
Where he might haue said as much in these words: when vice abounds, and
vertue decayeth in Albion, then &c. And as another said,
_When Prince for his people is wakefull and wise,
Peeres ayding with armes, Counsellors with aduise,
Magistrate sincerely vsing his charge,
People prest to obey, nor let to runne at large,
Prelate of holy life, and with deuotion
Preferring pietie before promotion,
Priest still preaching, and praying for our heale:
Then blessed is the state of a common-weale._
All which might haue bene said in these few words, when euery man in
charge and authoritie doeth his duety, & executeth his function well, then
is the common-wealth happy.
[Sidenote: _Epimone_, or the Loue burden.]
The Greeke Poets who made musicall ditties to be song to the lute or
harpe, did vse to linke their staues together with one verse running
throughout the whole song by equall distance, and was, for the most part,
the first verse of the staffe, which kept so good sence and conformitie
with the whole, as his often repetition did geue it greater grace. They
called such linking verse _Epimone_, the Latines _versus intercalaris_,
and we may terme him the Loue-burden, following the originall, or if it
please you, the long repeate: in one respect because that one verse alone
beareth the whole burden of the song according to the originall: in
another respect, for that it comes by large distances to be often
repeated, as in this ditty made by the noble knight Sir _Philip Sidney_,
_My true loue hath my heart and I haue his,
By iust exchange one for another geuen:
I holde his deare, and mine he cannot misse,
There neuer was a better bargaine driuen.
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