As the drie ground that thirstes after a showr
Seems to reioyce when it is well wet,
And speedely brings foorth both grasse and flowr,
If lacke of sunne or season doo not let.
Here for want of an apter and more naturall word to declare the drie temper of the earth, it is said to thirst & to reioyce, which is onley proper to liuing creatures, and yet being so inuerted, doth not so much swerue from the true sence but that euery man can easilie conceiue the meaning thereof.
Againe, we vse it for pleasure and ornament of our
speach, as thus in an
Epitaph of our owne making, to the honourable memorie
of a deere friend,
Sir Iohn Throgmorton, knight, Iustice of Chester,
and a man of many
commendable vertues.
Whom vertue rerde, enuy hath ouerthrowen
And Iudged full low, vnder this marble
stone:
Ne neuer were his values so well knowen,
Whilest he liued here, as now that he
is gone.
Here these words, rered, overthrowen, and lodged,
are inuerted, &
metaphorically applyed, not vpon necessitie,
but for ornament onely,
afterward againe in these verses.
No sunne by day that euer saw him rest
Free from the toyles of his so busie charge,
No night that harbourd rankor in his breast,
Nor merry moode made reason runne at large.
In these verses the inuersion or metaphore, lyeth
in these words, saw,
harbourd, run: which naturally are applyed to
liuing things, & not to
insensible: as the sunne, or the night:
& yet they approach so neere,
& so conueniently, as the speech is thereby made more
commendable. Againe,
in moe verses of the same Epitaph, thus.
His head a source of grauitie and sence,
His memory a shop of ciuill arte,
His tongue a streame of sugred eloquence,
Wisdome and meekenes lay mingled in his
harte,
In which verses ye see that these words, source, shop, find, sugred, are inuerted from their owne signification to another, not altogether so naturall, but of much affinitie with it.
Then also do we it sometimes to enforce a sence and
make the word more
significatiue: as thus,
I burne in loue, I freese in deadly
hate
I swimme in hope, and sinke in deepe dispaire.


