the bodie of a naked person, from the nauell downward, but nothing else. For word and speach, _Plautus_ is more plentifull, and _Terence_ more pure and proper: And for one respect, _Terence_ is to be embraced aboue all that euer wrote in hys kinde of argument: Bicause it is well known, by good recorde of learning, and that by _Ciceroes_ owne witnes that some Comedies bearyng _Terence_ name, were written by worthy _Scipio_, and wise _Lælius_, and namely _Heauton_: and _Adelphi_. And therefore as oft as I reade those Comedies, so oft doth sound in myne eare, the pure fine talke of Rome, which was vsed by the floure of the worthiest nobilitie that euer Rome bred. Let the wisest man, and best learned that liueth, read aduisedlie ouer, the first scene of _Heauton_, and the first scene of _Adelphi_, and let him consideratlie iudge, whether it is the talke of a seruile stranger borne, or rather euen that milde eloquent wise speach, which _Cicero_ in _Brutus_ doth so liuely expresse in _Lælius_. And yet neuerthelesse, in all this good proprietie of wordes, and purenesse of phrases which be in _Terence_, ye must not follow him alwayes in placing of them, bicause for the meter sake, some wordes in him, somtyme, be driuen awrie, which require a straighter placing in plaine prose, if ye will forme, as I would ye should do, your speach and writing, to that excellent perfitnesse, which was onely in _Tullie_, or onelie in _Tullies_ tyme. The meter and verse of _Plautus_ and _Terence_ be verie meane, _Meter in_ // and not to be followed: which is not their reproch, _Plautus &_ // but the fault of the tyme, wherein they wrote, whan _Terence._ // no kinde of Poetrie, in the Latin tong, was brought to perfection, as doth well appeare in the fragmentes of _Ennius, Cæcilius_, and others, and euidentlie in _Plautus_ & _Terence_, if thies in Latin be compared with right skil, with _Homer_, _Euripides, Aristophanes_, and other in Greeke of like sort. _Cicero_ him selfe doth complaine of this vnperfitnes, but more plainly _Quintilian_, saying, _in Comœdia maximè claudicamus, et vix leuem consequimur vmbram_: and most earnestly of all _Horace in Arte Poetica_, which he doth namely _propter carmen Iambicum_, and referreth all good studentes herein to the Imitation of the Greeke tong, saying. _Exemplaria Græca nocturna versate manu, versate diurna._ _the ready way to the Latin tong._ 289