Bvt all the world could not keepe, nor any ciuill ordinance to the contrary so preuaile, but that men would and must needs vtter their splenes in all ordinarie matters also: or else it seemed their bowels would burst, therefore the poet deuised a prety fashioned poeme short and sweete (as we are wont to say) and called it _Epigramma_ in which euery mery conceited man might without any long studie or tedious ambage, make his frend sport, and anger his foe, and giue a prettie nip, or shew a sharpe conceit in few verses: for this _Epigramme_ is but an inscription or writting made as it were vpon a table, or in a windowe, or vpon the wall or mantel of a chimney in some place of common resort, where it was allowed euery man might come, or be sitting to chat and prate, as now in our tauernes and common tabling houses, where many merry heades meete, and scrible with ynke with chalke, or with a cole such matters as they would euery man should know, & descant vpon. Afterward the same came to be put in paper and in bookes, and vsed as ordinarie missiues, some of frendship, some of defiaunce, or as other messages of mirth: _Martiall_ was the cheife of this skil among the Latines, & at ahese days the best Epigrames we finde, & of the sharpest conceit are those that haue bene gathered among the reliques of the two muet _Satyres_ in Rome, _Pasquill_ and _Marphorir_, which in time of _Sede vacante_, when merry conceited men listed to gibe & iest at the dead Pope, or any of his Cardinales, they fastened them vpon those Images which now lie in the open streets, and were tollerated, but after that terme expired they were inhibited againe. These inscriptions or Epigrammes at their beginning had no certaine author that would auouch them, some for feare of blame, if they were ouer saucy or sharpe, others for modestie of the writer as was that _disticke_ of _Virgil_ which he set vpon the pallace gate of the emperour _Augustus_, which I will recite for the breifnes and quicknes of it, & also for another euente that fell out vpon the matter worthy to be remembred. These were the verses. _Nocte pluit tota, redeunt spectacula mane Diuisum imperium cum Ioue Caesar habet._ Which I haue thus Englished, _It raines all night, early the shewes returne God and Caesar, do raigne and rule by turne._ As much to say, God sheweth his power by the night raines. Caesar his magnificence by the pompes of the day.