Of conquest (gracious queen) the signs and fruits, Achieved ’gainst such as wrongfully withheld The service by choice wits to Muses due, In humblest wise these captives we present. And lest your highness might suspect the gift, As spoil of war that justice might impeach, Hear and discern how just our quarrel was, Avouched (as you see) by good success. A dame there is, whom men Astrœa term, She that pronounceth oracles of laws, Who to prepare fit servants for her train, As by commission, takes up flow’ring wits, Whom first she schooleth to forget and scorn The noble skills of language and of arts, The wisdom which discourse of stories teach: The ornaments which various knowledge yields. But poesy she hath in most disdain, And marshals it next Folly’s scorned place. Then, when she hath these worthy prints defac’d Out of the minds that can endure her hand. What doth she then supply instead of these? Forsooth, some old reports of altered laws, Clamours of courts, and cavils upon words, Grounds without ground, supported by conceit, And reasons of more subtlety than sense. What shall I say of moot points strange, and doubts Still argued, but never yet agreed? And she that doth deride the poet’s law, Because he must his words in order place, Forgets her forms of pleading, more precise-- More bound to words than is the poet’s lore: And for these fine conceits she fitly chose A tongue that barbarism itself doth use. We, noting all these wrongs, did long expect Their hard condition would have made them wise, To offer us their service, plac’d so ill; But finding them addicted to their choice, And specially desirous to present Your Majesty with fruits of province new, Now did resolve to double force and skill, And found and us’d the vantage of the time, Surpris’d their fort, and took them captives all. So now submiss, as to their state belongs, They gladly yield their homage long withdrawn, And Poetry, which they did most contemn, They glory now her favours for to wear. My sisters laugh’d to see them take the pen, And lose their wits all in unwonted walks: But to your highness that delight we leave, To see these poets new their style advance. Such as they are, or nought or little worth, Deign to accept, and therewith we beseech, That novelty give price to worthless things. _Unto this speech one of the Gentlemen answered as followeth:_