This matter maketh me gladly remember, my sweete tyme spent at Cambrige, and the pleasant talke which I had oft with _M. Cheke_, and _M. Watson_, of this fault, not onely in the olde Latin Poets, but also in our new English Rymers at this day. They wished as _Virgil_ and _Horace_ were not wedded to follow the faultes of former fathers (a shrewd mariage in greater matters) but by right _Imitation_ of the perfit Grecians, had brought Poetrie to perfitnesse also in the Latin tong, that we Englishmen likewise would acknowledge and vnderstand right- fully our rude beggerly ryming, brought first into Italie by _Gothes_ and _Hunnes_, whan all good verses and all good learning to, were destroyd by them: and after caryed into France and Germanie: and at last, receyued into England by men of excellent wit in deede, but of small learning, and lesse iudge- ment in that behalfe. But now, when men know the difference, and haue the examples, both of the best, and of the worst, surelie, to follow rather the _Gothes_ in Ryming, than the Greekes in trew versifiyng, were euen to eate ackornes with swyne, when we may freely eate wheate bread emonges men. In deede, _Chauser, Th. Norton_, of Bristow, my L. of Surrey, _M. Wiat, Th. Phaer_, and other Ientlemen, in translating _Ouide, Palingenius_, and _Seneca_, haue gonne as farre to their great praise, as the copie they followed could cary them, but, if soch good wittes, and forward diligence, had bene directed to follow the best examples, and not haue bene caryed by tyme and custome, to content themselues with that barbarous and rude Ryming, emonges their other worthy praises, which they haue iustly deserued, this had not bene the least, to be counted emonges men of learning and skill, more like vnto the Grecians, than vnto the Gothians, in handling of their verse. In deed, our English tong, hauing in vse chiefly, wordes of one syllable which commonly be long, doth not well receiue the nature of _Carmen Heroicum_, bicause _dactylus_, the aptest foote for that verse, conteining one long & two short, is seldom there- fore found in English: and doth also rather stumble than stand vpon _Monosyllabis. Quintilian_ in hys learned Chapiter // hand.gif _de Compositione_, geueth this lesson _de Monosyllabis_, before me: and in the same place doth iustlie inuey against all Ryming, that if there be any, who be angrie with me, for 290 _The second booke teachyng_