of painting faces, and the counterfeit, or representation of other persons, by change of habit, humours, &c., all which are now so much in use and reputation with the great ones of the times. To these let me add that poetical _amoroso_, whom an inordinate passion of love first transported to those poetical raptures of admiration, indeed sordid effeminacy, if not idolatry; they call him Alcman or Alcina, a Lydian: he being exceedingly in love with a young woman of his own country, is said to have been the first person that gave the world a sight of that kind of folly, namely, love stories, and verses; which have been so diligently imitated by almost all nations ever since in their romances. Objection 2. VII. I know that some will say, But we have many comedies and tragedies, sonnets, catches, &c. that are on purpose to reprehend vice, from whence we learn many commendable things. Though this be shameful, yet many have been wont, for want of shame or understanding, or both, to return me this for answer. Now I readily shall confess, that amongst the heathens it was the next remedy against the common vices to the more grave and moral lectures of their philosophers, of which number I shall instance two: Euripides, whom Suidas calls a learned tragical poet, and Eupolis, whom the same historian calls a comical poet. The first was a man so chaste, and therefore so unlike those of our days, that he was called one that hated women, that is, wanton ones, for otherwise he was twice married; the other he characters as a most severe reprehender of faults. From which I gather, that their design was not to feed the idle lazy fancies of people, nor merely to get money; but since by the means of loose wits the people had been debauched, their work was to reclaim them, rendering vice ridiculous, and turning wit against wickedness. And this appears the rather, from the description given, as also that Euripides was supposed to have been torn in pieces by wanton women; which doubtless was for declaiming against their impudence: and the other being slain in the battle betwixt the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, was so regretted, that a law was made, that never after such poets should be allowed to bear arms: doubtless it was because in losing him they lost a reprover of vice. So that the end of the approved comedians and tragedians of those times was but to reform the people by making sin odious: and that not so much by a rational and argumentative way, usual with their philosophers; as by sharp jeers, severe reflections, and rendering their vicious actions shameful, ridiculous, and detestable; so that for reputation sake they might not longer be guilty of them: which is to me but a little softer than a whip or a bridewell. Now if you that plead for them will be contented to be accounted heathens, and those of the more dissolute and wicked sort too, that will sooner be jeered than argued out of your sins, we