_Admiranda canunt sed non credenda poetæ._ These were sore blemishes if objected rightly and heare you may say the streme runnes a wronge, but if it be so by you[r] leve I wyll bring him shortly in his right chanel. My answere shall not be my owne, but a learned father shall tell my tale, if you wil know his right name men call him _Lactantius_: who in hys book _de divinis institutionibus_ reesoneth thus. I suppose (sayth he) Poets are full of credit, and yet it is requesite for those that wil understand them to be admonished, that among them not onely the name but the matter beareth a show of that it is not: for if sayth he we examine the Scriptures litterallye nothing will seeme more falls, and if we way Poetes wordes and not ther meaning, our learning in them wilbe very mene. You see nowe your _Catoes_ judgement as of no force and that all your objections you make agaynst poetrye be of no valor, yet lest you should be altogether discouraged I wyll helpe you forwarde a little more, it pities me to consider the weaknes of your cause, I wyll therfore make your strongest reason more strong and after I have builded it up destroy it agayn. Poets you confesse are eloquent but you reprove them in their wantonnesse, they write of no wisedom, you may say their tales are frivolus, they prophane holy thinges, they seeke nothing to the perfection of our soules. Theyr practise is in other things of lesse force: to this objection I answer no otherwise then _Horace_ doeth in his booke _de arte poetica_ where he wryteth thus: _Silvestres homines sacer interpresque deorum Sedibus, et victu foedo deterruit orpheus. Dictus ob hoc lenire Tigres rabidosque leones. Dictus et Amphion Thebanæ condit[or] urbis Saxa movere sono, testudinis et prece blanda Ducere quo vellet. Fuit hoc sapientia quondam, Publica privatis secernere sacra prophanis, Concubitu prohibere vago, dare Iura maritis, Oppida moliri, leges incidere ligno._ The holy spokesman of the Gods With heave[n]ly Orpheus hight: Did drive the savage men from wods, And made them live aright. And therefore is sayd the Tygers fierce, And Lyons full of myght To overcome: _Amphion_, he Was sayd of Theabs the founder, Who by his force of Lute dyd cause The stones to part a sonder, And by his speach did them derect Where he would have them staye: This wisedome this was it of olde All strife for to allaye. To give to every man his owne, To make the Gods be knowne, To drive each lecher from the bed That never was his owne. To teach the law of mariage, The way to build a towne, For to engrave these lawes in woods This was these mens renowne.