1. _Ingenium_.—_Seneca_.—_Plato_.—_Aristotle_.—_Helicon_.—_Pegasus_.— _Parnassus_.—_Ovid_.—First, we require in our poet or maker (for that title our language affords him elegantly with the Greek) a goodness of natural wit. For whereas all other arts consist of doctrine and precepts, the poet must be able by nature and instinct to pour out the treasure of his mind, and as Seneca saith, _Aliquando secundum Anacreontem insanire jucundum esse_; by which he understands the poetical rapture. And according to that of Plato, _Frustrà poeticas fores sui compos pulsavit_. And of Aristotle, _Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixturâ dementiæ fuit_. _Nec potest grande aliquid_, _et supra cæteros loqui_, _nisi mota mens_. Then it riseth higher, as by a divine instinct, when it contemns common and known conceptions. It utters somewhat above a mortal mouth. Then it gets aloft and flies away with his rider, whither before it was doubtful to ascend. This the poets understood by their Helicon, Pegasus, or Parnassus; and this made Ovid to boast, “Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo Sedibus æthereis spiritus ille venit.” {139a} _Lipsius_.—_Petron. in. Fragm_.—And Lipsius to affirm, _Scio_, _poetam neminem præstantem fuisse_, _sine parte quadam uberiore divinæ auræ_. And hence it is that the coming up of good poets (for I mind not mediocres or imos) is so thin and rare among us. Every beggarly corporation affords the State a mayor or two bailiffs yearly; but _Solus rex_, _aut poeta_, _non quotannis nascitur_. To this perfection of nature in our poet we require exercise of those parts, and frequent.