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Puttenham, George, -1590

"The Arte of English Poesie"


_It fares not by fathers as by masters it doeth fare,
For a foolish father may get a wise sonne,
But of a foolish master it haps very rare
Is bread a wise seruant where euer he wonne.
And in these, likening the wise man to the Giant, the foole to
the Dwarfe.
_Set the Giant deepe in a dale, the dwarfe vpon an hill,
Yet will the one be but a dwarfe, th'other a giant still.
So will the wise be great and high, euen in the lowest place:
The foole when he is most aloft, will seeme but low and base._
[Sidenote: _Icon_, or Resemblance by imagerie.]
But when we liken an humane person to another in countenaunce, stature,
speach or other qualitie, it is not called bare resemblance, but
resemblaunce by imagerie or pourtrait, alluding to the painters terme, who
yeldeth to th'eye a visible representation of the thing he describes and
painteth in his table. So we commending her Maiestie for the wisedome
bewtie and magnanimitie likened her to the Serpent, the Lion and the
Angell, because by common vsurpation, nothing is wiser then the Serpent,
more courageous then the Lion, more bewtifull then the Angell. These are
our verses in the end of the seuenth _Partheniade._
_Nature that seldome workes amisse,
In womans brest by passing art:
Hath lodged safe the Lyons hart,
And stately fixt with all good grace,
To Serpents head an Angels face.


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