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Contriued into three Bookes: The first of Poets and Poesie,the second of Proportion, the third of Ornament.
[Illustration: AN CHORA SPEI (shield with hand coming out of a cloud andholding onto an anchor entwined with vine)]
Printed by Richard Field,dwelling in the black-Friers, neere Ludgate.1589.
Printer wisheth health and prosperitie, with the commandementand vse of his continuall seruice.
This Booke (right Honorable) coming to my handes, with his bare titlewithout any Authours name or any other ordinarie addresse, I doubted howwell it might become me to make you a present thereof, seeming by manyexpresse passages in the same at large, that it was by the Authourintended to our Soueraigne Lady the Queene, and for her recreation andseruice chiefly deuised, in which case to make any other person herhighnes partener in the honour of his guift it could not stand with mydutie, nor be without some prejudice to her Maiesties interest and hismerrite. Perceyuing besides the title to purport so slender a subiect, asnothing almost could be more discrepant from the grauitie of your yeeresand Honorable function, whose contemplations are euery houre moreseriously employed upon the publicke administration and services:I thought it no condigne gratification, nor scarce any good satisfactionfor such a person as you. Yet when I considered, that bestowing vpon yourLordship the first vewe of this mine impression (a feat of mine ownesimple facultie) it could not scypher her Maiesties honour or prerogatiuein the guift, nor yet the Authour of his thanks: and seeing the thing itselfe to be a deuice of some noueltie (which commonly it giveth euery goodthing a speciall grace) and a noueltie so highly tending to the mostworthy prayses of her Maiesties most excellent name. So deerer to you Idare conceiue them any worldly thing besides love although I could notdeuise to have presented your Lordship any gift more agreeable to yourappetite, or fitter for my vocation and abilitie to bestow, your Lordshipbeyng learned and a louer of learning, my present a Book and my selfe aprinter alwaies ready and desirous to be at your Honourable commaundement.And thus I humbly take my leave from the Black-friers, this xxvii of May,1589.
Your Honours most humble at commaundement,
A colei
[Illustration of Queen holding orb and sceptre.]
Che se stessa rassomiglia & non altrui.
THE FIRST BOOKE, _Of Poets and Poesie.
What a Poet and Poesie is, and who may be worthily sayd the mostexcellent Poet of our time.
A Poet is as much to say as a maker. And our English name well conformeswith the Greeke word: for of [Greek: poiein] to make, they call a makerPoeta. Such as (by way of resemblance and reuerently) we may say of God:who without any trauell to his diuine imagination, made all the world ofnought, nor also