what is best, or els of verie enuie, that any should performe that in learnyng, whereunto they, as I sayd before, either for ignorance, can not, or for idlenes will not, labor to attaine vnto. And you that prayse this Ryming, bicause ye neither haue reason, why to like it, nor can shew learning to defend it, yet I will helpe you, with the authoritie of the oldest and learnedst tyme. In _Grece_, whan Poetrie was euen at the hiest pitch of per- fitnes, one _Simmias Rhodius_ of a certaine singularitie wrote a booke in ryming _Greke_ verses, naming it oon, conteyning the fable, how _Iupiter_ in likenes of a swan, gat that egge vpon _Leda_, whereof came _Castor, Pollux_ and faire _Elena_. This booke was so liked, that it had few to read it, but none to folow it: But was presentlie contemned: and sone after, both Author and booke, so forgotten by men, and consumed by tyme, as scarse the name of either is kept in memorie of learnyng: And the like folie was neuer folowed of any, many hondred yeares after vntill y^e _Hunnes_ and _Gothians_, and other barbarous nations, of ignorance and rude singularitie, did reuiue the same folie agayne. The noble Lord _Th._ Earle of Surrey, first of all English men, in translating the fourth booke of _Virgill_: // The Earle of and _Gonsaluo Periz_ that excellent learned man, // Surrey. and Secretarie to kyng _Philip_ of _Spaine_, in // _Gonsaluo_ translating the _Vlisses of Homer_ out of _Greke_ into // _Periz._ _Spanish_, haue both, by good iudgement, auoyded the fault of Ryming, yet neither of them hath fullie hite perfite and trew versifiyng. In deede, they obserue iust number, and euen feete: but here is the fault, that their feete: be feete without ioyntes, that is to say, not distinct by trew quantitie of sillables: And so, soch feete, be but numme feete: and be, euen as vnfitte for a verse to turne and runne roundly withall, as feete of brasse or wood be vnweeldie to go well withall. And as a foote of wood, is a plaine shew of a manifest maime, euen so feete, in our English versifiing, without quantitie and ioyntes, be sure signes, that the verse is either, borne deformed, vnnaturall and lame, and so verie vnseemlie to looke vpon, except to men that be gogle eyed them selues. The spying of this fault now is not the curiositie of English eyes, but euen the good iudgement also of the best // _Senese_ that write in these dayes in _Italie_: and namelie of // _Felice_ that worthie _Senese Felice Figliucci_, who, writyng // _Figliucci._ 292 _The second booke teachyng_