And the rest that followeth, meaning her Maiesties person, which we would seeme to hide leauing her name vnspoken to the intent the reader should gesse at it:  neuerthelesse vpon the matter did so manifestly disclose it, as any simple iudgement might easily perceiue by whom it was ment, that is by Lady Elizabeth, Queene of England and daughter to king Henry the eight, and therein resteth the dissimulation.  It is one of the gallantest figures among the poetes so it be vsed discretely and in his right kinde, but many of these makers that be not halfe their craftes maisters, do very often abuse it and also many waies.  For if the thing or person they go about to describe by circumstance, be by the writers improuidence otherwise bewrayed, it looseth the grace of a figure, as he that said: 
  The tenth of March when Aries receiued,
  Dan Phoebus raies into his horned hed.

Intending to describe the spring of the yeare, which euery man knoweth of himselfe, hearing the day of March named:  the verses be very good the figure nought worth, if it were meant in Periphrase for the matter, that is the season of the yeare which should haue bene couertly disclosed by ambage, was by and by blabbed out by naming the day of the moneth, & so the purpose of the figure disapointed, peraduenture it had bin better to haue said thus: 
  The month and date when Aries receiud,
  Dan Phoebus raies into his horned head.

For now there remaineth for the Reader somewhat to studie and gesse vpon, and yet the spring time to the learned iudgement sufficiently expressed.

The Noble Earle of Surrey wrote thus: 
  In winters iust returne, when Boreas gan his raigne,
  And euery tree vnclothed him fast as nature taught them plaine.

I would faine learne of some good maker, whether the Earle spake this in figure of Periphrase or not, for mine owne opinion I thinke that if he ment to describe the winter season, he would not haue disclosed it so broadly, as to say winter at the first worde, for that had bene against the rules of arte, and without any good iudgement:  which in so learned & excellent a personage we ought not to suspect, we say therefore that for winter it is no Periphrase but language at large:  we say for all that, hauing regard to the second verse that followeth it is a Periphrase, seeming that thereby he intended to shew in what part of the winter his loues gaue him anguish, that is in the time which we call the fall of the leafe, which begins in the moneth of October, and stands very well with the figure to be vttered in that sort notwithstanding winter be named before, for winter hath many parts:  such namely as do not shake of the leafe, nor vncloth the trees as here is mentioned:  thus may ye iudge as I do, that this noble Erle wrate excellently well and to purpose.  Moreouer, when a maker will seeme to vse circumlocution to set forth any thing pleasantly