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Puttenham, George, -1590

"The Arte of English Poesie"


_As falcon fares to bussards flight,
As egles eyes to owlates sight,
As fierce saker to coward kite,
As brightest noone to darkest night:
As summer sunne exceedeth farre,
The moone and euery other starre:
So farre my Princesse praise doeth passe,
The famoust Queene that euer was._
And in the eighteene Partheniade thus.
_Set rich rubie to red esmayle,
The rauens plume to peacocks tayle,
Lay me the larkes to lizards eyes,
The duskie cloude to azure skie,
Set shallow brookes to surging seas,
An orient pearle to a white pease._
&c. Concluding.
_There shall no lesse an ods be seene
In mine from euery other Queene._
[Sidenote: Dialogismus, or the right reasoner.]
We are sometimes occasioned in our tale to report some speech from another
mans mouth, as what a king said to his priuy counsel or subiect, a
captaine to his souldier, a souldiar to his captaine, a man to a woman,
and contrariwise: in which report we must always geue to euery person his
fit and naturall, & that which best becommeth him. For that speech
becommeth a king which doth not a carter, and a young man that doeth not
an old: and so, in euery sort and degree. _Virgil_ speaking in the person
of _Eneas, Turnus_ and many other great Princes, and sometimes of meaner
men, ye shall see what decencie euery of their speeches holdeth with the
qualitie, degree and yeares of the speaker.


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