We call it by a common saying to _set the carte before the horse_,
and it may be done eyther by a single word or by a clause of speech: by a
single word thus:
_And if I not performe, God let me neuer thriue._
For performe not: and this vice is sometime tollerable inough, but if the
word carry any notable sence, it is a vice not tollerable, as he that said
praising a woman for her red lippes, thus:
_A corrall lippe of hew._
Which is no good speech, because either he should haue sayd no more but a
corrall lip, which had bene inough to declare the rednesse or els he
should haue said a lip of corrall hew, and not a corrall lip of hew. Now
if this disorder be in a whole clause which carieth more sentence then a
word, it is then worst of all.
[Sidenote: _Acyron_, or the Vncouthe.]
Ye haue another vicious speech which the Greeks call _Acyron_, we call it
the _vncouthe_, and is when we vse an obscure and darke word, and vtterly
repugnant to that we would expresse, if it be not by vertue of the figures
_metaphore, allegorie, abusion_, or such other laudable figure before
remembred, as he that said by way of _Epithete_.
_A dongeon deep, a dampe as darke as hell._
Where it is euident that a dampe being but a breath or vapour, and not to
be discerned by the eye, ought not to haue this _epithete (darke,)_ no
more then another that praysing his mistresse for her bewtifull haire,
said very improperly and with an vncouth terme.
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