commaundement. In good faith, I had once again nigh forgotten your Faerie Queene: howbeit, by good chaunce, I haue nowe sent hir home at the laste, neither in better nor worse case than I founde hir. And must you of necessitie haue my iudgement of hir indeede? To be plaine, I am voyde of al iudgement, if your nine Comoedies, whervnto, in imitation of Herodotus, you giue the names of the nine Muses, (and in one mans fansie not vnworthily), come not neerer Ariostoes comoedies, eyther for the finesse of plausible elocution or the rarenesse of poetical inuention, than that Eluish Queene doth to his Orlando Furioso; which, notwithstanding, you wil needes seeme to emulate, and hope to ouergo, as you flatly professed yourself in one of your last letters. Besides that, you know, it hath bene the vsual practise of the most exquisite and odde wittes in all nations, and specially in Italie, rather to shewe and aduaunce themselues that way than any other; as, namely, those three notorious dyscoursing heads, Bibiena, Machiauel, and Aretine, did, (to let Bembo and Ariosto passe,) with the great admiration and wonderment of the whole countrey: being, in deede, reputed matchable in all points, both for conceyt of witte and eloquent decyphering of matters, either with Aristophanes and Menander in Greek, or with Plautus and Terence in Latin, or with any other in any other tong. But I wil not stand greatly with you in your owne matters. If so be the Faerye Queeue be fairer in your eie than the nine Muses, and Hobgoblin runne away with the garland from Apollo, marke what I saye: and yet I will not say that I thought, but there an end for this once, and fare you well, till God or some good aungell putte you in a better minde. APPENDIX III. INDEX OF PROPER NAMES.