where no name, character, or signature doth blazon them seem to me like affected as women, who if they hear anything ill spoken of the ill of their sex, are presently moved, as if the contumely respected their particular; and on the contrary, when they hear good of good women, conclude that it belongs to them all.  If I see anything that toucheth me, shall I come forth a betrayer of myself presently?  No, if I be wise, I’ll dissemble it; if honest, I’ll avoid it, lest I publish that on my own forehead which I saw there noted without a title.  A man that is on the mending hand will either ingenuously confess or wisely dissemble his disease.  And the wise and virtuous will never think anything belongs to themselves that is written, but rejoice that the good are warned not to be such; and the ill to leave to be such.  The person offended hath no reason to be offended with the writer, but with himself; and so to declare that properly to belong to him which was so spoken of all men, as it could be no man’s several, but his that would wilfully and desperately claim it.  It sufficeth I know what kind of persons I displease, men bred in the declining and decay of virtue, betrothed to their own vices; that have abandoned or prostituted their good names; hungry and ambitious of infamy, invested in all deformity, enthralled to ignorance and malice, of a hidden and concealed malignity, and that hold a concomitancy with all evil.

What is a Poet?

Poeta.—­A poet is that which by the Greeks is called [Greek text], a maker, or a feigner:  his art, an art of imitation or feigning; expressing the life of man in fit measure, numbers, and harmony, according to Aristotle; from the word [Greek text], which signifies to make or feign.  Hence he is called a poet, not he which writeth in measure only, but that feigneth and formeth a fable, and writes things like the truth.  For the fable and fiction is, as it were, the form and soul of any poetical work or poem.

What mean, you by a Poem?

Poema.—­A poem is not alone any work or composition of the poet’s in many or few verses; but even one verse alone sometimes makes a perfect poem.  As when AEneas hangs up and consecrates the arms of Abas with this inscription:-

“AEneas haec de Danais victoribus arma.” {136a}

And calls it a poem or carmen.  Such are those in Martial:-

“Omnia, Castor, emis:  sic fiet, ut omnia vendas.” {136b}

And —

“Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper.” {136c}

Horatius.—­Lucretius.—­So were Horace’s odes called Carmina, his lyric songs.  And Lucretius designs a whole book in his sixth:-

“Quod in primo quoque carmine claret.” {136d}

Epicum.—­Dramaticum.—­Lyricum.—
­Elegiacum.—­Epigrammat.—­And anciently all the oracles were called Carmina; or whatever sentence was expressed, were it much or little, it was called an Epic, Dramatic, Lyric, Elegiac, or Epigrammatic poem.