Amongst the which; fair sister of PHOEBUS! and eloquent secretary of the Muses! most rare Countess of PEMBROKE! thou art not to be omitted: whom arts do adore as a second MINERVA, and our poets extol as the patroness of their invention. For in thee, the Lesbian SAPPHO with her lyric harp is disgraced; and the laurel garland, which thy brother so bravely advanced on his lance, is still kept green in the temple of PALLAS. Thou only sacrificest thy soul to contemplation! Thou only entertainest emptyhanded HOMER! and keepest the springs of Castalia from being dried up! Learning, wisdom, beauty and all other ornaments of nobility whatsoever, seek to approve themselves in thy sight; and get a further seal of felicity from the smiles of thy favour.
O Jove digna viro ni Jove nata fores.
I fear I shall be counted a mercenary flatterer, for mixing my thoughts with such figurative admiration: but general report that surpasseth my praise, condemneth my rhetoric of dulness for so cold a commendation. Indeed, to say the truth, my style is somewhat heavy-gaited, and cannot dance trip and go so lively; with "O my love!" "Ah my love!" "All my love's gone!"—as other shepherds that have been fools in the morris, time out of mind: nor hath my prose any skill to imitate the "almond leap verse," and sit tabering, five years together, nothing but "to be," "to he," on a paper drum. Only I can keep pace with Gravesend barge; and care not, if I have water enough to land my ship of fools with the Term (the tide, I should say). Now every man is not of that mind. For some, to go the lighter away, will take in their freight of spangled feathers, golden pebbles, straw, reeds, bulrushes, or anything; and then they bear out their sails as proudly, as if they were ballasted with bull beef.
