of many the most abject, but such as this is deserves commendations, because a Prince made it, but if you saw his real devices, you would then say they were Prince-like. And then he read it, which I was loath, my good friends, either to translate or translated to present it here, for that it was not worthy your censure, considering the nice buildings of Sonnets nowadays, but according to Ariosto’s vein you shall find it very conformable, as also for that I knew that if I should have left it out, it would have been more wished for than now admired. Yet for that I prefer your well-known good wills afore any vain fear, take this with the rest, if they be any with such favour, as if I were by you at the reading. _A mio solemente amandona Madonna: Donna non parelia._ _L’Angelico sembiante e quel bel volte, Fal’odio, el’ira va in oblivione, Ch’a l’_ etc. Thus have I harshly Englished them verbally. _Angellike semblaunce beauties ornament, Whose Vertue quels all wrath and rancor deepe, Whose life Heauens grace and death would monument Vertue thy life aie.[66] How many wounded hearts thou makst to tremble, And I of many one cannot dissemble, How farre into in that eie-sore._ _So were thy beauty but deseruing praise, So were thy beauty but as feminine, Then could my quill his straine so high arrayse, Then could with it compare the masculine, Thy beauty praise thy bounty past diuine, No straine no quill such wonderments assaies, Then Poets pen shall to thy power his power resigne._ _What words may wel expresse such excellence, No humane thought thy beauties may comprise And wordes may tell all humane insolence All humane words and witte thy gifts surprise. To satisfie my selfe in my pretence, Our pen vnto the heauens must wander hence. And fill it selfe with dew of heauenly Sapience._ _And I my life shall to your hands resigne, Which liue to serue a humane Sainct so past deuine._ _Se dacolei. Che poco ingegno adhor adhor mi lima._ This Sonnet was ended with as much praise as it began with desire, and one of them copied it out, and so it was made common to the rest, and made a good sort of them Poets, rectifying their gross conceits, with so sweet a matter. He told them that this was but a preparative to wondering in respect of his choice makings. Then he shewed them this Epigram, which he made when as before the Duke his Father, a brace of fair English Greyhounds fell down at the Hart’s heels stark dead (the Hart also lying not above six yards off dead too) with chasing, having outstripped the rest of the dogs above half a mile.