I doubt not but you haue some great important matter in hande, which al this while restraineth your penne, and wonted readinesse in prouoking me vnto that wherein yourselfe nowe faulte. If there bee any such thing in hatching, I pray you hartily lette vs knowe, before al the worlds see it. But if happly you dwell altogither in Iustinians Courte, and giue your selfe to be devoured of secreate studies, as of all likelyhood you doe, yet at least imparte some your olde or newe, Latine or Englishe, eloquent and gallant poesies to vs, from whose eves, you saye, you keepe in a manner nothing hidden. Little newes is here stirred, but that olde greate matter still depending. His Honoure neuer better. I thinke the earthquake wyth you (which I would gladly learne), as it was here with vs; ouerthrowing diuers old buildings and peeces of churches. Sure verye straunge to be hearde of in these countries, and yet I heare some saye (I knowe not howe truely) that they haue knowne the like before in their dayes. _Sed quid vobis videtur magnis philosophis?_ I like your late Englishe hexameters so exceedingly well, that I also enure my penne sometime in that kinde: whyche I fynd, indeede, as I haue heard you often defende in worde, neither so harde nor so harshe, that it will easily and fairely yeelde it selfe to oure moother tongue. For the onely or chiefest hardnesse whych seemeth is in the accente, whyche sometime gapeth, and as it were yawneth ilfauouredly, comming shorte of that it should, and sometime exceeding the measure of the number; as in _carpenter_, the middle sillable being vsed shorte in speache, when it shall be read long in verse, seemeth like a lame gosling, that draweth one legge after hir: and _heauen_, beeing vsed shorte as one sillable, when it is in verse, stretched out with a _diastole_, is like a lame dogge that holdes vp one legge. But it is to be wonne with custome, and rough words must be subdued with vse. For why, a God’s name, may not we, as else the Greekes, haue the kingdome of oure owne language, and measure our accents by the sounde, reseruing the quantitie to the verse? Loe, here I let you see my olde vse of toying in rymes, turned into your artificiall straightnesse of verse by this _tetrasticon_. I beseech you tell me your fancie, without parcialitie. See yee the blindefolded pretie god, that feathered archer, Of louers miseries which maketh his bloodie game? Wote ye why his moother with a veale hath coouered his face? Trust me, least he my looue happely chaunce to beholde. Seeme they comparable to those two which I translated you _ex tempore_ in bed, the last time we lay togither in Westminster? That which I eate, did I ioy, and that which I greedily gorged; As for those many goodly matters leaft I for others.