“Never may he be old,” answered Palladius, “that doth not reverence that age, whose heaviness, if it weigh down the frail and fleshly balance, it as much lifts up the noble and spiritual part; and well might you have alleged another reason, that their wisdom makes them willing to profit others. And that have I received of you, never to be forgotten, but with ungratefulness. But among many strange conceits you told me, which have shewed effects in your prince, truly even the last, that he should conceive such pleasure in shepherds’ discourses would not seem the least unto me, saving that you told me at the first that this country is notable in those wits, and that indeed myself having been brought not only to this place, but to my life by Strephon and Claius in their conference found wits as might better become such shepherds as Homer speaks of, that be governors of people, than such senators who hold their council in a sheep-cote.” “For them two (said Kalander), especially Claius, they are beyond the rest by so much as learning commonly doth add to nature: for, having neglected their wealth in respect of their knowledge, they have not so much impaired the meaner, as they bettered the better. Which all notwithstanding, it is a sport to hear how they impute to love which hath indued their thoughts (say they) with such a strength. But certainly all the people of this country, from high to low, are given to those sports of the wit, so as you would wonder to hear how soon even children will begin to versify. Once, ordinary it is amongst the meanest sort, to make songs and dialogues in metre, either love whetting their brain, or long peace having begun it, example and emulation amending it. Not so much, but the clown Dametas will stumble sometimes upon some songs that might become a better brain: but no sort of people are so excellent in that kind as the pastors, for their living standing but upon the looking to their beasts, they have ease, the nurse of poetry. Neither are our shepherds such as (I hear) they be in other countries, but they are the very owners of the sheep, to which either themselves look, or their children give daily attendance. And then truly, it would delight you under some tree, or by some river’s side (when two or three of them meet together) to hear their rural muse, how prettily it will deliver out, sometimes joys, sometimes lamentations, sometimes challengings one of the other, sometimes under hidden forms, uttering such matters as otherwise they durst not deal with. Then have they most commonly one who judgeth the prize to the best doer, of which they are no less glad than great princes are of triumphs: and his part is to set down in writing all that is said, save that it may be {20} his pen with more leisure doth polish the rudeness of an unthought-on song. Now the choice of all (as you may well think) either for goodness of voice, or pleasantness of wit, the prince hath: among whom also there are two or three