A Discourse of English Poetrie (1586) by the laborious but uninspired tutor, William Webbe,[[398]] is not a defense; but interspersed among his remarks advocating the reformed versifying, and his arid catalog of poets, ancient and modern, is a good deal about the moral purpose and value of poetry. A thoroughgoing Horatian, he cannot forbear to quote at length and comment upon the "miscere utile dulci," of his master. Poetry, in Webbe's conception, therefore, is especially effective in its "sweete allurements to vertues and commodious caveates from vices."[[399]] In appraising the methods of producing the moral effect, Webbe fails to share with his contemporaries their high opinion of moral example and their depreciation of precept. Poetry, he says, contains great and profitable fruits for the instruction of manners and precepts of good life[[400]]. And he finds much profit even in the most dissolute works of Ovid and Martial because they abound in moral precepts. He does not, however, entirely discount the moral effect of example. Ovid and Martial should be kept from young people who have not yet gained sufficient judgment to distinguish between the beneficial and the harmful, and Lucian should not be read at all. But he seems to fear the moral effect of bad example more than he applauds the effect of good. Thus his main reliance is upon allegory. The Metamorphoses of Ovid, for instance,
though it consisted of fayned Fables for the most part, and poeticall inventions, yet being moralized according to his meaning, and the trueth of every tale beeing discovered, it is a worke of exceeding wysedome and sounde judgment [and the rest of his writings] are mixed with much good counsayle and profitable lessons, if they be wisely and narrowly read.[[401]]
Perhaps because he was not pledged to defend poetry against the attacks of the Puritans, Webbe thus allows himself to admit "the very summe or cheefest essence of poetry dyd alwayes for the most part consist in delighting the readers or hearers with pleasure." Aside from his emphasizing allegory, which Plutarch had rejected, Webbe is thus closer to the doctrines of Plutarch than he is to the Italians. Poetry has, he believes, a moral effect, but he does not establish this moral effect as its motivating purpose[[402]]. And again, after descanting on the exhortations to virtue, dehortations from vices, and praises of laudable things which characterized the early poets, he defines the comical sort of poetry as containing "all such Epigrammes, Elegies, and delectable ditties, which Poets have devised respecting onely the delight thereof.[[403]]
Like Webbe, the author of The Arte of English Poesie (1589) ascribed to Puttenham,[[404]] believes much in the pleasure of poetry. He does not, however, advance pleasure as the purpose any more than he does profit. Instead of endeavoring to discover what the end or purpose of poetry may be, Puttenham explains why certain forms of poetry were devised, or what may be the intention of certain poets in certain poems. The passage is worth quoting at length. The use of poetry, says Puttenham,
is the laud, honour, & glory of the immortall gods (I speake now in phrase of the Gentiles); secondly, the worthy gests of noble Princes, the memoriall and registry of all great fortunes, the praise of vertue & reproofe of vice, the instruction of morall doctrines, the revealing of sciences naturall & other profitable Arts, the redresse of boistrous & sturdie courages by perswasion, the consolation and repose of temperate myndes: finally, the common solace of mankind in all his travails and cares of this transitorie life; and in this last sort, being used for recreation onely, may allowably beare matter not alwayes of the gravest or of any great commoditie or profit, but rather in some sort vaine, dissolute, or wanton, so it be not very scandalous & of evill example.[[405]]
The poems of "this last sort" which Puttenham had in mind were anagrams, emblems, and such trifling verse especially, which, as he says, have been objected to by some grave and theological heads as "to none edification nor instruction, either of morall vertue or otherwise behooffull for the commonwealth." These trifles "have bene in all ages permitted as the convenient solaces and recreations of man's wit."[[406]] But Puttenham does not advocate that these poems whose only aim is recreation should be released from the restraints of accepted morality. They may be vain, dissolute or wanton, but not very scandalous. They should not offer evil examples, nor should their matter be "unhonest."
Not all poetry, according to Puttenham, is given over to refreshing the mind by the ear's delight. Although the poet is appointed as a pleader of lovely causes in the ear of princely dames, young ladies, gentlewomen, and courtiers,[[407]] none the less much poetry has a didactic purpose. Satire was first invented to administer direct rebuke of evil, comedy to amend the manners of common men by discipline and example, tragedy to show the mutability of fortune and the just punishment of God in revenge of a vicious and evil life, pastoral to inform moral discipline, for the amendment of man's behavior, or to insinuate or glance at greater matters under the veil of rustic persons and rude speeches.[[408]] Here Puttenham pays his respects to all accepted methods of poetical instruction: in satire, to precepts; in comedy and tragedy, to example; in pastoral, to allegory. Yet it is in historical poetry, which may indifferently be wholly true, wholly false, or a mixture, the moral effect of example is most potent. Speaking of examples in poetry, he says, "Right so no kinde of argument in all the Oratorie craft doth better perswade and more universally satisfie then example."[[409]] It is on this account that historical poetry is, next the divine, the most honorable and worthy. For the historians have always been not so eager that what they wrote should be true to fact as that it should be used either for example or for pleasure.
Considering that many times it is seene a fained matter or altogether fabulous, besides that it maketh more mirth than any other, works no less good conclusions for example then the most true and veritable, but often more, because the Poet hath the handling of them to fashion at his pleasure.[[410]]
This conception of history as moral example is common enough. To Budé all history was a moral example[[411]] and Puttenham's inclusion of didactic fiction is in line with much renaissance thought, which regarded the two as almost interchangeable.[[412]]
Puttenham, like Webbe, was more in accord with Horace in admitting both the pleasant and profitable effects of poetry than he was with Minturno, Scaliger, and Sidney. He grants that some poetry exists only for pleasure, but he puts his emphasis on poetry as a power of persuasion[[413]] accomplishing the moral improvement of society. As late as the Hypercritica (1618) of Bolton, history is defined as nothing else but a kind of philosophy using examples. Bolton enforces his view by quotation from Bede, William of Malmesbury, and Sir Thomas North.[[414]]