[Sidenote: _Pragmatographia_, or the Counterfait action.] But if such description be made to represent the handling of any busines with the circumstances belonging therevnto as the manner of a battell, a feast, a marriage, a buriall or any other matter that heth in feat and actiutie: we call it then the counterfeit action [_Pragmatographia_.] In this figure the Lord _Nicholas Vaux_ a noble gentleman, and much delighted in vulgar making, & a man otherwise of no great learning but hauing herein a maruelous facillitie, made a dittie representing the battayle and assault of _Cupide_, so excellently well, as for the gallant and propre application of his fiction in euery part, I cannot choose but set downe the greatest part of his ditty, for in truth it can not be amended. _When Cupid scaled first the fort, Wherein my hart lay wounded sore, The battrie was of such a sort, That I must yeeld or die therefore. There saw I loue vpon the wall, How he his banner did display, Alarme alarme he gan to call, And had his souldiers keepe aray. The armes the which that Cupid bare, We pearced harts with teares besprent: In siluer and sable to declare The stedfast loue he alwaies meant. There might you see his band all drest In colours like to white and blacke, With pouder and with pellets prest, To bring them forth to spoile and sacke, Good will the master of the shot, Stood in the Rampire braue and proude, For expence of pouder he spared not, Assault assault to crie aloude. There might you heare the Canons rore, Eche peece discharging a louers looke, &c._ [Sidenote: _Omiosis_, or Resemblance.] As well to a good maker and Poet as to an excellent perswader in prose, the figure of _Similitude_ is very necessary by which we not onely bewtifie our tale, but also very much inforce & inlarge it. I say inforce because no one thing more preuaileth with all ordinary iudgements than perswasion by _similitude_. Now because there are sundry sorts of them, which also do worke after diuerse fashions in the hearers of conceits, I will set them foorth by a triple diuision, exempting the generall _Similitude_ as their common Auncestour, and I will cal him by the name of _Resemblance_ without any addition, from which I deriue three other sorts: and giue euery one his particular name, as Resemblance by Pourtrait or Imagery, which the Greeks call _Icon_, _Resemblance_ morall or misticall, which they call _Parabola_, & _Resemblance_ by example, which they call _Paradigma_, and first we will speake of the general resemblance, or bare _similitude_, which may be thus spoken. _But as the watrie showres delay the raging wind, So doeth good hope cleane put away dispaire out of my mind._ And in this other likening the forlorne louer to a striken deer. _Then as the striken deere, withdrawes himselfe alone, So do I seeke some secret place, where I may make my mone._