JUDICIO. Turn over the leaf, Ingenioso, and thou shalt see the pains of this worthy gentleman: _Sentences, gathered out of all kind of poets, referred to certain methodical heads, profitable for the use of these times, to rhyme upon any occasion at a little warning_. Read the names. INGENIOSO. So I will, if thou wilt help me to censure them. Edmund Spenser. Thomas Watson. Henry Constable. Michael Drayton. Thomas Lodge. John Davis. Samuel Daniel. John Marston. Kit Marlowe. Good men and true; stand together; hear your censure. What's thy judgment of Spenser? JUDICIO. A sweeter[43] swan than ever sung in Po, A shriller nightingale than ever bless'd The prouder groves of self-admiring Rome. Blithe was each valley, and each shepherd proud, While he did chant his rural minstrelsy: Attentive was full many a dainty ear, Nay, hearers hung upon his melting tongue, While sweetly of his Fairy Queen he sung; While to the waters' fall he tun'd for fame, And in each bark engrav'd Eliza's name: And yet for all this unregarding soil Unlac'd the line of his desired life, Denying maintenance for his dear relief; Careless care to prevent his exequy, Scarce deigning to shut up his dying eye. INGENIOSO. Pity it is that gentler wits should breed, Where thickskin chuffs laugh at a scholar's need. But softly may our honour's ashes rest, That lie by merry Chaucer's noble chest. But, I pray thee, proceed briefly in thy censure, that I may be proud of myself; as in the first, so in the last, my censure may jump with thine.--Henry Constable, Samuel Daniel,[44] Thomas Lodge, Thomas Watson. JUDICIO. Sweet Constable[45] doth take the wond'ring ear, And lays it up in willing prisonment: Sweet honey-dropping Daniel doth wage War with the proudest big Italian, That melts his heart in sugar'd sonneting; Only let him more sparingly make use Of others' wit, and use his own the more, That well may scorn base imitation. For Lodge[46] and Watson,[47] men of some desert, Yet subject to a critic's marginal; Lodge for his oar in ev'ry paper boat, He, that turns over Galen ev'ry day, To sit and simper Euphues' Legacy.[48] INGENIOSO. Michael Drayton? JUDICIO. Drayton's sweet muse is like a sanguine dye, Able to ravish the rash gazer's eye. INGENIOSO. However, he wants one true note of a poet of our times, and that is this: he cannot swagger it well in a tavern, nor domineer in a hothouse. John Davis?[49] JUDICIO. Acute John Davis, I affect thy rhymes, That jerk in hidden charms these looser times; Thy plainer verse, thy unaffected vein, Is graced with a fair and sweeping[50] train. INGENIOSO. Lock and Hudson?[51] JUDICIO. Lock and Hudson, sleep, you quiet shavers, among the shavings of the press, and let your books lie in some old nooks amongst old boots and shoes; so you may avoid my censure. INGENIOSO. Why, then, clap a lock on their feet, and turn them to commons. John Marston?[52]