To his friend Maister R. L. In praise of Musique and Poetrie. [Illustration] If Musique and sweet Poetrie agree, As they must needes (the Sister and the Brother) Then must the Loue be great, twixt thee and mee, Because thou lou'st the one, and I the other. _Dowland_ to thee is deare; whose heauenly tuch Vpon the Lute, doeth rauish humaine sense: _Spenser_ to mee; whose deepe Conceit is such, As passing all Conceit, needs no defence. Thou lou'st to heare the sweete melodious sound, That _Phœbus_ Lute (the Queene of Musique) makes: And I in deepe Delight am chiefly drownd, When as himselfe to singing he betakes. One God is God of Both (as Poets faigne) One Knight loues Both, and Both in thee remaine. _SONNET._ II. _Against the Dispraysers of Poetrie._ [Illustration] _Chaucer_ is dead; and _Gower_ lyes in grave; The Earle of _Surrey_, long agoe is gone; Sir _Philip Sidneis_ soule, the Heauens haue; _George Gascoigne_ him beforne, was tomb'd in stone, Yet, tho their Bodies lye full low in ground, (As euery thing must dye, that earst was borne) Their liuing fame, no Fortune can confound; Nor euer shall their Labours be forlorne. And you, that discommend sweete Poetrie, (So that the Subiect of the same be good) Here may you see, your fond simplicitie; Sith Kings haue fauord it, of royall Blood. The King of _Scots_ (now liuing) is a Poet, As his _Lepanto_, and his _Furies_ shoe it. [Illustration] A Remembrance of some English Poets. [Illustration] Liue _Spenser_ euer, in thy _Fairy Queene:_ Whose like (for deepe Conceit) was neuer seene. Crownd mayst thou bee, vnto thy more renowne, (As King of Poets) with a Lawrell Crowne. And _Daniell_, praised for thy sweet-chast Verse: Whose Fame is grav'd on _Rosamonds_ blacke Herse. Still mayst thou liue: and still be honored, For that rare Worke, _The White Rose and the Red_. And _Drayton_, whose wel-written Tragedies, And sweete Epistles, soare thy fame to skies. Thy learned Name, is æquall with the rest; Whose stately Numbers are so well addrest. And _Shakespeare_ thou, whose hony-flowing Vaine, (Pleasing the World) thy Praises doth obtaine. Whose _Venus_, and whose _Lucrece_ (sweete, and chaste) Thy Name in fames immortall Booke haue plac't. Liue euer you, at least in Fame liue euer: Well may the Bodye dye, but Fame dies neuer. [Illustration] An Ode. [Illustration]