sense then and allegory, which is the soul, is to be sought, which intends a more eminent expressure of Virtue for her loveliness, and of Vice for her ugliness, in their several effects; going beyond the life than any art within life can possibly delineate. Why then is fiction to this end so hateful to our true ignorants? Or why should a poor chronicler of a Lord Mayor’s naked truth (that peradventure will last his year) include more worth with our modern wizards than Homer for his naked Ulysses clad in eternal fiction? But this proser Dionysius, and the rest of these grave and reputatively learned—that dare undertake for their gravities the headstrong censure of all things, and challenge the understanding of these toys in their childhoods; when even these childish vanities retain deep and most necessary learning enough in them to make them children in their ages, and teach them while they live—are not in these absolute divine infusions allowed either voice or relish: for, _Qui Poeticas ad fores accedit, etc._ (says the divine philosopher) he that knocks at the gates of the Muses, _sine Musarum furore,_ is neither to be admitted entry, nor a touch at their thresholds; his opinion of entry ridiculous, and his presumption impious. Nor must Poets themselves (might I a little insist on these contempts, not tempting too far your Lordship’s Ulyssean patience) presume to these doors without the truly genuine and peculiar induction. There being in Poesy a twofold rapture,—or alienation of soul, as the abovesaid teacher terms it,—one _insania,_ a disease of the mind, and a mere madness, by which the infected is thrust beneath all the degrees of humanity: _et ex homine, brutum quodammodò redditur:_—(for which poor Poesy, in this diseased and impostorous age, is so barbarously vilified;)—the other is, _divinus furor,_ by which the sound and divinely healthful _suprà hominis naturam erigitur, et in Deum transit._ One a perfection directly infused from God; the other an infection obliquely and degenerately proceeding from man. Of the divine fury, my Lord, your Homer hath ever been both first and last instance; being pronounced absolutely, _τὸν σοφώτατον, καὶ τὸν θειότατον ποιητήν,_ “the most wise and most divine poet.” Against whom whosoever shall open his profane mouth may worthily receive answer with this of his divine defender—Empedocles, Heraclitus, Protagoras, Epicharmus, etc., being of Homer’s part—_τίς οο͒ν,_ etc.; who against such an army, and the general Homer, dares attempt the assault, but he must be reputed ridiculous? And yet against this host, and this invincible commander, shall we have every _besogne_ and fool a leader. The common herd, I assure myself, ready to receive it on their horns. Their infected leaders,