The Defence of Poesie.
and patience; sometimes shew that contentions for trifles, can get but a trifling victory, wher perchance a man may see, that euen Alexander & Darius, when they straue who should be Cocke of this worldes dunghill, the benefit they got, was, that the afterliuers may say, Haec memini & victum frustra contendere Thirsim. Ex illo Coridon, Coridon est tempore nobis. Or is it the lamenting Elegiack, which in a kinde heart would mooue rather pittie then blame, who bewaileth with the great Philosopher Heraclitus, the weakenesse of mankinde, and the wretchednesse of the world: who surely is to bee praised either for compassionate accompanying iust causes of lamentations, or for rightlie painting out how weake be the passions of wofulnesse? Is it the bitter but wholesome Iambick, who rubbes the galled minde, in making shame the Trumpet of villanie, with bolde and open crying out against naughtinesse? Or the Satirick, who Omne vafer vitium ridenti tangit amico, who sportingly, neuer leaueth, till he make a man laugh at follie; and at length ashamed, to laugh at himself; which he cannot auoyde, without auoyding the follie? who while Circum praecordia ludit, giueth vs to feele how many headaches a passionate life bringeth vs to? How when all is done, Est Vlubris animus si nos non deficit aequus. No perchance it is the Comick, whom naughtie Play-makers and stage-keepers, haue iustly made odious. To the arguments of abuse, I will after answer, onely thus much now is to be said, that the Comedy is an imitatiō of the cōmon errors of our life, which he representeth in the most ridiculous &scornfull
