The Defence of Poesie.
it were his fortune to performe so excellent an Act? Whom doth not those words of Turnus mooue, (the Tale of Turnus hauing planted his image in the imagination) fugientem haec terra videbit? Vsqueadeone mori miserum est? Wher the Philosophers as they think scorne to delight, so must they be content little to mooue; sauing wrangling whether Virtus be the chiefe or the onely good; whether the contemplatiue or the actiue life do excell; which Plato & Poetius well knew: and therefore made mistresse Philosophie verie often borrow the masking raiment of Poesie. For euen those hard hearted euill men who thinke vertue a schoole name, and know no other good but indulgere genio, and therefore despise the austere admonitions of the Philosopher, and feele not the inward reason they stand vpon, yet will be content to be delighted, which is all the good, fellow Poet seemes to promise; and so steale to see the form of goodnes, (which seene, they cannot but loue) ere themselues be aware, as if they tooke a medicine of Cheries. Infinit proofes of the straunge effects of this Poeticall inuention, might be alleaged: onely two shall serue, which are so often remembred, as I thinke all men know them. The one of Menemus Agrippa, who when the whole people of Rome had resolutely diuided themselues from the Senate, with apparant shew of vtter ruine, though he were for that time an excellent Orator, came not amōg them vpon trust either of figuratiue speeches, or cunning insinuations, and much lesse with farre set Maximes of Philosophie, which especially if they were Platonike, they must haue learned Geometrie beforethey
