And coylie
He lukit lyke a Sant."
It is observable that James, in assigning his "twa caussis" for composing this work, tells us that "albeit sindrie hes written of it (poesie) in English, quhilk is lykest to our language, zit we differ from thame in sindrie reulis of poesie, as ze will find be experience;" but who these sundry writers were, has not, with the exception of Gascoigne's "Notes of Instruction," been hitherto discovered.[462:A]
It is barely possible that the royal critic may have included in his "sindrie," the next work which we have to record on the subject, the production of our immortal Spenser, and entitled "The English
Poet," a work which we lament should have been suffered to perish in manuscript. Its existence was first intimated to the public in 1579, by E. K., in his argument to the tenth Aeglogue of the Shepheard's Calender, with a promise, which unfortunately proved faithless, of committing it to the press. Poetry, observes this commentator, is "no art, but a divine gift and heavenly instinct not to be gotten by labour and learning, but adorned with both; and poured into the witte by a certaine Enthusiasmos and celestial inspiration, as the Author hereof elsewhere at large discourseth in his booke called The English Poet, which booke being lately come to my handes, I minde also by God's grace, upon further advisement, to publish."[463:A] That the taste and erudition of Spenser had rendered this critical essay highly interesting, there is every reason to conclude, and though the only positive testimony to its composition rests on the single authority which we have quoted, it is extremely probable, from the manner in which its acquisition by the commentator is mentioned, that the MS. had circulated, and continued to circulate, among the friends and admirers of the poet, for some years.
Scarcely had the British Solomon published his juvenile criticisms, when a kindred work issued from the London press, under the title of "A Discourse of English Poetrie, together with the Author's Judgment touching the reformation of our English verse. By William Webbe, Graduate. Imprinted at London by John Charlewood. 4to, 1586." Black letter.
The chief purport of this pamphlet, now so rare that only three copies are known to exist[463:B], is to propose, what the author terms, a "perfect platform, or prosodia of versifying, in imitation of the Greeks and Latins," a scheme which, though supported by Sidney, Dyer, Spenser, and Harvey, happily miscarried. "The hexameter verse," says Nash, with great good sense, in his controversy with Harvey, "I graunt to be a gentleman of an auncient house, (so is
many an English beggar,) yet this clyme of ours hee cannot thrive in; our speech is too craggy for him to set his plough in; hee goes twitching and hopping in our language, like a man running upon quagmires, up the hill in one syllable and downe the dale in another, retaining no part of that stately smooth gate which he vaunts himself with amongst the Greeks and Latins."[464:A]
Webbe's "Discourse," however, is valuable on account of the characters which he has drawn of the English poets, from Chaucer to his own time. He notices, also, "Gaskoynes Instructions for versifying;" and, after declaring the Shepherd's Calender inferior neither to Theocritus nor Virgil, he expresses an ardent wish that the other works of Spenser might get abroad, and especially his "English Poet, which his friend E. K. did once promise to publish." The tract concludes with the author's assertion, that his "onely ende" in compiling it was "not as an exquisite censure concerning the matter," but "that it might be an occasion to have the same thoroughly, and with greater discretion taken in hande, and laboured by some other of greater abilitie, of whom I know there be manie among the famous poets in London, who both for learning and leysure may handle the argument far more pythelie."[464:B]
In 1588, Abraham Fraunce, another encourager and writer of English Hexameter and Pentameter verses, published in octavo, a critical treatise, a mixture of prose and verse, under the quaint title of "The Arcadian Rhetoricke, or the Precepts of Rhetoricke made plain by example, Greeke, Latyne, Englishe, Italyan, and Spanishe." This rare volume is in the library of Mr. Malone, and is valuable, observes Warton, for its English examples.[464:C]