A lewd terme to be giuen to a Princes treasure (pelfe) and was a little more manerly spoken by Seriant Bendlowes, when in a progresse time comming to salute the Queene in Huntingtonshire he said to her Cochman, stay thy cart good fellow, stay thy cart, that I may speake to the Queene, whereat her Maiestie laughed as she had bene tickled, and all the rest of the company although very graciously (as her manner is) she gaue him great thanks and her hand to kisse. These and such other base wordes do greatly disgrace the thing & the speaker or writer: the Greekes call it [Tapinosis] we the [abbaser.]
[Sidenote: Bomphiologia, or Pompious speech.] Others there be that fall into the contrary vice by vsing such bombasted wordes, as seeme altogether farced full of winde, being a great deale to high and loftie for the matter, whereof ye may finde too many in all popular rymers.
[Sidenote: Amphibologia, or the Ambiguous.] Then haue ye one other vicious speach with which we will finish this Chapter, and is when we speake or write doubtfully and that the sence may be taken two wayes, such ambiguous termes they call Amphibologia, we call it the ambiguous, or figure of sence incertaine, as if one should say Thomas Tayler saw William Tyler dronke, it is indifferent to thinke either th'one or th'other dronke. Thus said a gentleman in our vulgar pretily notwithstanding because he did it not ignoratnly, but for the nonce. I sat by my Lady soundly sleeping, My mistresse lay by me bitterly weeping.
No man can tell by this, whether the mistresse or the man, slept or wept: these doubtfull speaches were vsed much in the old times by their false Prophets as appeareth by the Oracles of Delphos and and of the Sybille prophecies deuised by the religious persons of those dayes to abuse the superstitious people, and to encumber their busie braynes with vaine hope or vaine feare.
Lucretius the merry Greeke reciteth a great number of them, deuised by a coosening companion one Alexander, to get himselfe the name and reputation of the God Aesculapius, and in effect all our old Brittish and Saxon prophesies be of the same sort, that turne them on which side ye will, the matter of them may be verified, neuerthelesse carryeth generally such force in the heades of fonde people, that by the comfort of those blind prophecies many insurrections and rebellions have bene stirred vp in this Realme, as that of Iacke Straw & Iacke Cade in Richard the seconds time, and in our time by a seditious fellow in Norffolke calling himself Captaine Ket and others in other places of the Realme lead altogether by certaine propheticall rymes, which might be construed two or three wayes as well as to that one whereunto the rebelles applied it: our maker shall therefore auoyde all such ambiguous speaches vnlesse it be when he doth it for the nonce and for some purpose.
CHAP. XXIII.
What it is that generally makes our speach well pleasing & commeniable and of that which the Latines call Decorum.
In all things to vse decencie, is it onely that giueth euery thing his good grace & without which nothing in mans speach could seeme good or gracious, in so much as many times it makes a bewtifull figure fall into deformitie, and on th'other side a vicious speach seeme pleasaunt and bewtifull: this decencie is therfore the line & leuell for al good makers to do their busines by. But herein resteth the difficultie to know what this good grace is, & wherein it confitted, for peraduenture it be easier to conceaue then to expresse, we wil therfore examine it to the bottome & say: that euery thing which pleaseth the mind or sences, & the mind by the sences as by means instrumentall, doth it for some amiable point or qualitie that is in it, which draweth them to a good liking and contentment with their proper obiects. But that cannot be if they discouer any illfauorednesse or disproportion to the partes apprehensiue, as for example, when a sound is either too loude or too low or otherwise confuse, the eare is ill affected: so is th'eye if the coulour be sad or not liminous and recreatiue, or the shape of a membred body without his due measures and simmetry, and the like of euery other sence in his proper function. These excesses or defectes or confusions and disorders in the sensible objectes are deformities and vnseemely to the sence. In like sort the mynde for the things that be his mentall obiectes hath his good graces and his bad, whereof th'one contents him wonderous well, th'other displeaseth him continually, no more nor no lesse then ye see the discords of musicke do to a well tuned eare. The Greekes call this good grace of euery thing in his kinde, [Greek: illegible], the Latines [decorum] we in our vulgar call it by a scholasticall terme [decencie] our owne Saxon English terme is [seemelynesse] that is to say, for his good shape and vtter appearance well pleasing the eye, we call it also [comelynesse] for the delight it bringeth comming towards vs, and to that purpose may be called [pleasant approche] so as euery way seeking to expresse this [Greek: illegible] of the Greekes and decorum of the Latines, we are faine in our vulgar toung to borrow the terme which our eye onely for his noble prerogatiue ouer all the rest of the sences doth vsurpe, and to apply the same to all good, comely, pleasant and honest things, euen to the spirituall obiectes of the mynde, which stand no lesse in the due proportion of reason and discourse than any other materiall thing doth in his sensible bewtie, proportion and comelynesse.
Now because this comelynesse resteth in the good conformitie of many things and their sundry circumstances, with respect one to another, so as there be found a iust correspondencie betweene them by this or that relation, the Greekes call it Analogie or a conuenient proportion. This louely conformitie or proportion or conueniencie betweene the sence and the sensible hath nature her selfe first most carefully obserued in all her owne workes, then also by kinde graft it in the appetites of euery creature working by intelligence to couet and desire: and in their actions to imitate & performe: and of man chiefly before any other creature as well in his speaches as in euery other part of his behauiour. And this in generalitie and by an vsuall terme is that which the Latines call [decorum.] So albeit we before alleaged that all our figures be but transgressions of our dayly speach, yet if they fall out decently to the good liking of the mynde or eare and to the bewtifying of the matter or language, all is well, if indecently, and to the eares and myndes misliking (be the figure of it selfe neuer so commendable) all is amisse, the election is the writers, the iudgement is the worlds, as theirs to whom the reading apperteineth. But since the actions of man with their circumstances be infinite, and the world likewise replenished with many iudgements, it may be a question who shal haue the determination of such controuersie as may arise whether this or that action or speach be decent or indecent: and verely it seemes to go all by discretion, not perchaunce of euery one, but by a learned and experienced discretion, for otherwise seemes the decorum to a weake and ignorant iudgement, then it doth to one of better knowledge and experience: which sheweth that it resteth in the discerning part of the minde, so as he who can make the best and most differences of things by reasonable and wittie distinction is to be the fittest iudge or sentencer of [decencie.] Such generally is the discreetest man, particularly in any art the most skilfull and discreetest, and in all other things for the more part those that be of much obseruation and greatest experience. The case then standing that discretion must chiefly guide all those business, since there be sundry sortes of discretion all unlike, euen as there be men of action or art, I see no way so fit to enable a man truly to estimate of [decencie] as example, by whose veritie we may deeme the differences of things and their proportions, and by particular discussions come at length to sentence of it generally, and also in our behauiours the more easily to put it in execution. But by reason of the sundry circumstances, that mans affaires are as it were wrapt in, this [decencie] comes to be very much alterable and subiect to varietie, in so much as our speech asketh one maner of decencie, in respect of the person who speakes: another of his to whom it is spoken: another of whom we speake: another of what we speak, and in what place and time and to what purpose. And as it is of speach, so of al other our behauiours. We wil therefore set you down some few examples of euery circumstance how it alters the decencie of speach or action. And by these few shal ye be able to gather a number more to confirme and establish your iudgement by a perfit discretion.
This decencie, so farfoorth as apperteineth to the consideration of our art, resteth in writing, speech and behauiour. But because writing is no more then the image or character of speech, they shall goe together in these our observations. And first wee wil sort you out diuers points, in which the wise and learned men of times past haue noted much decency or vndecencie, every man according to his discretion, as it hath bene said afore: but wherein for the most part all discreete men doe generally agree, and varie not in opinion, whereof the examples I will geue you be worthie of remembrance: & though they brought with them no doctrine or institution at all, yet for the solace they may geue the readers, after such a rable of scholastical precepts which be tedious, these reports being of the nature of matters historicall, they are to be embraced: but olde memories are very profitable to the mind and serue as a glasse to looke vpon and behold the euents of time, and more exactly to skan the trueth of every case that shall happen in the affaires of man, and many there be that haply doe not obserue euery particularitie in matters of decencie or vndecencie: and yet when the case is tolde them by another man, they commonly geue the same sentence vpon it. But yet whosoeuer obserueth much, shalbe counted the wisest and discreetest man, and whosoever spends all his life in his owne vaine actions and conceits, and obserues no mans else, he shal in the ende prooue but a simple man. In which respect it is alwaies said, one man of experience is wiser than tenne learned men, because of his long and studious obseruation and often triall.