xli. 1589. Richard (?) Puttenham.
[From The Arte of English Poesie (1589; S. R. 9 Nov. 1588), edited by E. Arber (1869); also in J. Haslewood, Ancient Critical Essays, vol. i (1811), and in part in Gregory Smith, ii. 1. On the author, cf. ch. xxiii.]
Most of the treatise (bks. ii, iii) deals with the technicalities of poetic structure and style, which the author sometimes illustrates from interludes and verses of his own. Bk. i praises poetry in general, on familiar but non-controversial humanist lines, and discusses with some classical erudition the origin of various types of poetry, as tragedy, comedy, and pantomime (c. 11), comedy (c. 14), tragedy (c. 15), staging (c. 17), pastoral (c. 18). In a brief account of English poets (c. 31) occurs: ‘But the principall man in this profession at the same time [Edward’s] was Maister Edward [sic] Ferrys a man of no lesse mirth and felicitie that way, but of much more skil, and magnificence in his meeter, and therefore wrate for the most part to the stage, in Tragedie and sometimes in Comedie or Enterlude, wherein he gaue the king so much good recreation, as he had thereby many good rewardes.... Of the later sort I thinke thus. That for Tragedie, the Lord of Buckhurst and Maister Edward Ferrys for such doings as I haue sene of theirs do deserue the hyest price: Th’ Earle of Oxford and Maister Edwardes of her Maiesties Chappell for Comedy and Enterlude.’