CHAP.  III.

How ornament Poeticall is of two sortes according to the double vertue and efficacie of figures.

This ornament then is of two sortes, one to satisfie & delight th’eare onely by a goodly outward shew fet vpon the matter with wordes, and speaches smothly and tunably running:  another by certaine intendments or sence of such wordes & speeches inwardly working a stirre to the mynde:  that first qualitie the Greeks called Enargia, of this word argos, because it geueth a glorious lustre and light.  This latter they callled Energia of ergon, because it wrought with a strong and vertuous operation; and figure breedeth them both, some seruing to giue glosse onely to a language, some to geue it efficacie by sence, and so by that meanes some of them serue th’eare onely, some serue the conceit onely and not th’eare:  there be of them also that serue both turnes as common seruitours appointed for th’one and th’other purpose, which shalbe hereafter spoken of in place:  but because we haue alleaged before that ornament is but the good or rather bewtifull habite of language and stile and figuratiue speaches the instrument wherewith we burnish our language fashioning it to this or that measure and proportion, whence finally resulteth a long and continuall phrase or maner of writing or speach, which we call by the name of stile:  we wil first speake of language; then of stile, lastly of figure, and declare their vertue and differences, and also their vse and best application, & what portion in exornation euery of them bringeth to the bewtifying of this Arte.

  CHAP.  IIII.

Of Language.

Speach is not naturall to man sauing for his onely habilitie to speake, and that he is by kinde apt to vtter all his conceits with sounds and voyces diuersified many maner of wayes, by meanes of the many & fit instruments he hath by nature to that purpose, as a broad and voluble tong, thinne and mouable lippes, teeth euen and not shagged; thick ranged, a round vaulted pallate, and a long throte, besides an excellent capacitie of wit that maketh him more disciplinable and imitative than any other creature:  then as to the forme and action of his speach, it commeth to him by arte & teaching, and by vse or exercise.  But after a speach is fully fashioned to the common vnderstanding, & accepted by consent of a whole countrey & nation, it is called a language, & receaueth none allowed alteration, but by extraordinary occasions by little & little, as it were insensibly bringing in of many corruptions that creepe along with the time:  of all which matters, we haue more largely spoken in our bookes of the originals and pedigree of the English tong.  Then when I say language, I meane the speach wherein the Poet or maker writeth be it Greek or Latine or as our case is the vulgar English, & when it is peculiar vnto a countrey it is called the mother speach