There is no greater difference betwixt a ciuill and brutish vtteraunce then cleare distinction of voices: and the most laudable languages are alwaies most plaine and distinct, and the barbarous most confuse and indistinct: it is therefore requisit that leasure be taken in pronuntiation, such as may make our wordes plaine & most audible and agreable to the eare: also the breath asketh to be now and then releeued with some pause or stay more or lesse: besides that the very nature of speach (because it goeth by clauses of seuerall construction & sence) requireth some space betwixt them with intermission of sound, to th'end they may not huddle one vpon another so rudly & so fast that th'eare may not perceiue their difference. For these respectes the auncient reformers of language, inuented, three maner of pauses, one of lesse leasure then another, and such seuerall intermissions of sound to serue( besides easment to the breath) for a treble distinction of sentences or parts of speach, as they happened to be more or lesse perfect in sence. The shortest pause or intermission they called _comma_ as who would say a peece of a speach cut of. The second they called _colon_, not a peece but as it were a member for his larger length, because it occupied twice as much time as the _comma_. The third they called _periodus_, for a complement or full pause, and as a resting place and perfection of so much former speach as had bene vttered, and from whence they needed not to passe any further vnles it were to renew more matter to enlarge the tale. This cannot be better represented then by example of these common trauailers by the hie ways, where they seeme to allow themselues three maner of staies or easements: one a horsebacke calling perchaunce for a cup of beere or wine, and hauing dronken it vp rides away and neuer lights: about noone he commeth to his Inne, & there baites him selfe and his horse an houre or more: at night when he can conueniently trauaile no further, he taketh vp his lodging, and rests him selfe till the morrow: from whence he followeth the course of a further voyage, if his business be such. Euen so our Poet when he hath made one verse, hath as it were finished one dayes iourney, & the while easeth him selfe with one baite at the least, which is a _Comma_ or _Cesure_ in the mid way, if the verse be euen and not odde, otherwise in some other place, and not iust in the middle. If there be no _Cesure_ at all, and the verse long, the lesse is the makers skill and hearers delight. Therefore in a verse of twelue sillables the _Cesure_ ought to fall right vpon the sixt sillable: in a verse of eleuen vpon the sixt also leauing fiue to follow. In a verse of ten vpon the fourth, leaving sixe to follow. In a verse of nine vpon the fourth, leauing fiue to follow. In a verse of eight iust in the middest, that is, vpon the fourth. In a verse of seauen, either vpon the fourth or none at all, the meeter very ill brooking any pause. In a verse of sixe