AS Greece had three Poets of great antiquity

1. Orpheus

2. Linus

3. Musoeus

and Italy, other three auncient Poets,

1. Livius Andronicus

2. Ennius

3. Plautus:

SO hath England three auncient Poets,

1. Chaucer,

2. Gower

3. Lydgate

AS

1. Homer

is reputed the Prince of Greek Poets;

and

1. Petrarch

of Italian Poets

So

1. Chaucer

is accounted the God of English Poets

AS

1. Homer

was the first that adorned the Greek tongue with true quantity:

SO

1. Piers Plowman

was the first that observed the true quantitie of our verse without the curiositie of Rime.

1. Ovid

writ a Chronicle from the beginning of the world to his own time, that is, to the raign of Augustus the Emperour:

SO hath

1. Harding the Chronicles

after his manner of old harsh riming from Adam to his time, that is, the raigne of King Edward the fourth

AS

1. Sotades Maronites

the Iambicke Poet gave himselfe wholy to write impure and lascivious things:

SO

1. Skelton

(I know not for what great worthines, surnamed the Poet Laureat) applied his wit to scurrilities and ridiculous matters, such among the Greeks were called Pantomimi, with us Buffons.

AS

1. Consalvo Perez

that excellent learned man, and Secretary to King Philip of Spayne, in translating the Ulysses of Homer out of Greeke into Spanish, hath by good judgement avoided the faulte of Ryming, although not fully hit perfect and true versifying:

SO hath

1. Henrie Howarde

that true and noble Earle of Surrey in translating the fourth book of Virgils Aeneas, whom Michael Drayton in his Englands heroycall Epistles hath eternized for an Epistle to his faire Geraldine.

AS these Neoterickes

1. Iovianus Pontanus

2. Politianus

3. Marullus Tarchaniota

4. the two Stroza,

   the father and the son,

5. Palingenius

6. Mantuanus

7. Philelphus

8. Quintianus Stoa

9. Germanus Brixius

have obtained renown and good place among the auncient Latine Poets:

SO also these English men being Latine Poets

1. Gualter Haddon

2. Nicholas Car

3. Gabriel Harvey

4. Christopher Ocland

5. Thomas Newton

with his Leyland

6. Thomas Watson

7. Thomas Campion

8. Brunswerd &

9. Willey,

have attained good report and honorable advancement in the Latin Empyre

AS the Greeke tongue is made famous and eloquent by

1. Homner

2. Hesiod

3. Euripides

4. Aeschilus

5. Sophocles

6. Pindarus

7. Phocylides

8. Aristophanes;

and the Latine tongue by

1. Virgill

2. Ovid

3. Horace

4. Silius Italicus

5. Lacanus

6. Lucretius

7. Ausonius  and

8. Claudianus

SO the English tongue is mightily enriched, and gorgeouslie invested in rare ornaments and resplendent abiliments by

1. Sir Philip Sidney

2. Spencer

3. Daniel

4. Drayton

5. Warner

6. Shakespeare

7. Marlow

8. Chapman

AS

1. Xenophon,

who did imitate so excellently, as to give us effigiena iusti imperis, the portraiture of a just Empire under the name of Cyrus (as Cicero saieth of him) made therein ab absolute heroicall Poem; and

AS

1. Heliodorus

writ in prose his sugred invention of that picture of Love in Theagines and Cericles Cariclea,

and yet both excellent admired Poets:

SO

1. sir Philip Sidney

writ his immortal Poem, The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia, in Prose, and yet our rarest Poet.

AS

1. Sextus Propertius

saide; Nescio quid magis nascitur Iliade:

SO

I say of

1. Spencers

Fairy Queene,

I knowe not what more excellent or exquisite Poem may be written.

AS

Achilles had the advantage of Hector because it was his fortune to bee extolled and renowned by the heavenly verse of

1. Homer:

SO

1. Spensers

Elisa the Fairy Queen hath the advantage of all the Queenes in the worlde, to bee eternized by so divine a Poet.

AS

1. Theocritus

is famoused for his Idyllia in Greeke

and

1. Virgill

for his Eclogs in Latin:

SO

1. Spencer

their imitatour in his Shepheardes Calender,

is renowned for the like argument, and honoured for fine Poeticall invention, and most exquisit wit.

AS

1. Parthenius Nicaeus

excellently sung the praises of his Arete:

SO

1. Daniel

hath divinely sonetted the matchlesse beauty of his Delia.

AS every one mourneth, when hee heareth of the lamentable plangors of Thracian

1. Orpheus

for his dearest Euridice:

SO every one passionateth, when he readeth the afflicted death of

1. Daniels

distressed Rosamond.

AS

1. Lucan

hath mournefully depainted the civill wars of Pompey & Caesar:

SO  hath

1. Daniel

the civill wars of Yorke and Lancaster

and

2. Drayton

the civill wars of Edward the second, and the Barons

AS

1. Virgil

doth imitate

1. Catullus

in the like matter of Ariadne for his story of Queene Dido:

SO

1. Michael Drayton

doth imitate

1. Ovid

in his Englands Heroical Epistles.

AS

1. Sophocles

was called a Bee for the sweetnes of his tongue:

SO in Charles Fitz-Iefferies Drake

1. Drayton

is termed Goldenmouth'd for the purity and pretiousnesse of his stile and phrase.

AS

1. Accius

2. M. Attilius and

3. Milithus

were called Tragoediographi, because they writ Tragedies:

SO may we truly terme

1. Michael Drayton

Tragoediographus, for his passionate penning the downfals of

1. valiant Robert of Normandy

2. chast Matilda

3. and great Gaveston

AS

1. Ioan. Honterus

in Latine verse writ 3. Bookes of Cosmography with Geographicall tables:

SO

1. Michael Drayton

is now in penning in English verse a Poem called Poly-olbion Geographical and Hydrographicall of all the forests, woods, mountaines, fountaines, rivers, lakes, flouds, bathes and springs that be in England.

AS

1. Aulus Persius Flaccus

is reported among al writers to be of an honest life and upright conversation:

SO

1. Michael Drayton

(que totis honoris & amoris causa nomino) among schollers, souldiours, Poets, and all sorts of people, is helde for a man of vertuous disposition, honest conversation, and wel governed cariage, which is almost miraculous among good with in these declining and corrupt times, when there is nothing but rogery in villanous man, & when cheating and crassines is counted the cleanest wit, and soundest wisedome.

AS

1. Decius Ausonius Gallus

in libris Fastorum, penned the occurences of the world from the first creation of it to his time, that is, to the raigne of the Emperor Gratian:

SO

1. Warner

in his absolute Albions Englande hath most admirably penned the historie of his own country from Noah to his time, that is, to the raigne of Queene Elizabeth, I have heard   him termd of the best wits of both our Universities, our English Homer.

AS

1. Euripides

ist the most sententious among the Greek Poets.

SO is

1. Warner

among our English Poets.

AS

the soule of

1. Euphorbus

was thought to live in

1. Pythagoras:

SO

the sweete wittie soule of

1. Ovid

lives in mellifluous & hony-tongued

1. Shakespeare,

witnes his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his private friends, &c.

AS

1. Plautus and

2. Seneca

are accounted  the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latines:

SO

1. Shakespeare

among the English is the most excellent in BOTH kinds for the stage

AS Epius Stolo said, that the Muses would speake with

1. Plautus tongue,

if they would speak Latin:

SO I say that the Muses would speak with

1. Shakespeares fine filed phrase

if they would speake English.

AS Musaeus, who wrote the love of Hero and Leander, had two excellent schollers,

1. Thamaras &

2. Hercules:

SO hath he in England two excellent Poets, imitators of him in the same argument and subject,

1. Christopher Marlow, and

2. George Chapman.

AS

1. Ovid

saith of his work

Iam opus exegi, quod nec Iovis ira, nec ignis

Nec poteris ferrum, nec edax abolero vetustas

And AS

1. Horace

saith of his: Exegi monumentum are perennius; Regalique; situ pyramidum altius; Quod non imber edax; Non Aquilo impotens possit discere; aut innumerabilis annorum series & fuga temperorum:

SO say I severally of

1. sir Philip Sidneys

2. Spencers

3. Daniels

4. Draytons

5. Shakespeares

6. Warners:

Non Iouis ira: imbres: Mars: ferrum; flamma, senectus, Hoc opus unda: lues: turbo: venena ruent. Et quanquam ad plucherrimum hoc opus euertendum tres illi Dij conspirabunt, Cronus, Vulcanus, & pater ipse gentis; Non tamen annorum series, non flamma, nec ensis, Aeternum potuit hoc abolere Decus.

AS Italy had

1. Dante

2. Boccace

3. Petrarch

4. Tasso

5. Celiano and

6. Ariosto:

SO England

1. Mathew Roydon

2. Thomas Atchelow

3. Thomas Watson

4. Thomas Kid

5. Robert Greene &

6. George Peele

AS there are eight famous and chiefe languages

1. Hebrew

2. Greek

3. Latine

4. Syriack

5. Arabicke

6. Italian

7. Spanish

8. French

SO there are eight notable severall kindes of Poets

1. Heroick

2. Lyricke

3. Tragicke

4. Comicke

5. Satiricke

6 Iambicke

7. Elegiacke &

8. Pastoral

AS

1. Homer and

2. Virgil

among the Greeks and Latines are the chief Heroick Poets:

SO

1. Spencer and

2. Warner

be our chiefe heroicall Makers.

AS

1. Pindarus

2. Anacreon and

3. Callimachus

among the Greekes;

and

4. Horace and

5. Catullus

among the Latines are the best Lyrick Poets:

SO in this faculty the best among our Poets are

1. Spencer (who excelleth in all kinds)

2. Daniel

3. Drayton

4. Shakespeare

5. Bretton

AS these Tragicke Poets flourished in Greece

1.  Aeschylus

2.  Euripedes

3.  Sophocles

4.  Alexander Aetolus

5.  Achanes Erithraeus

6.  Astydamas Atheniensis

7.  Appolodorus Tarsensis

8.  Nicomachus Phrygius

9.  Thespis Atticus and

10. Timon Apolloniares

and these among the Latines

11. Accius

12. M. Attilius

13. Pomponius Secundus and

14. Seneca:

SO these are our best   for Tragedie,

1. the Lorde Buckhurst

2. Doctor Leg of Cambridge

3. Doctor Edes of Oxford

4. maister Ferris

5. the Authour of the Mirrour

   for Magistrates

6. Marlow

7. Peele

8. Watson

9. Kid

10. Shakespeare

11. Drayton

12. Chapman

13. Decker, and

14. Beniamin Iohnson

AS

1. M. Anneus Lucanus

writ two excellent Tragedies, one called

1. Medea

the other

2. de Incendio Troia cum Priami calamitate:

SO

1. Doctor Leg

hath penned two famous tragedies, the one

1. Richard the 3.

the other

2. the destruction of Ierusalem

The best Poets for Comedy among the Greeks are these

1.  Menander

2.  Aristophanes

3.  Eupolis Atheniensis

4.  Alexius Terius

5.  Nicostratus

6.  Amipsias Atheniensis

7.  Anaxandrides Rhodius

8.  Aristonymus

9.  Archippus Atheniensis and

10. Callias Atheniensis

and among the Latines

11. Plautus

12. Terence

13. Naevius

14. Sext. Turpilius

15. Licinius Imbrex  and

16. Virgilius Romanus:

SO the best for Comedy amongst us bee

1. Edward Earle of Oxforde

2. Doctor Gager of Oxforde

3. Maister Rowley, once a rare

  Scholler of learned 

  Pembrooke Hall in Cambridge

4. Maister Edwardes one of her

   Maiesties Chappell,

5. eloquent and wittie Iohn 

   Lilly

6. Lodge

7. Gascoyne

8. Greene

9. Shakespeare

10. Thomas Nashe

11. Thomas Heywood

12. Anthony Mundy, our best

    plotter

13. Chapman

14. Porter

15. Wilson

16. Hathway

17. Henry Chettle

AS

1. Horace

2. Lucilius

3. Iuvenall

4. Persius &

5. Lucullus

are the best for Satyre among the Latines:

SO with us in the same faculty these are chiefe

1. Piers Plowman

2. Lodge

3. Hall of Imanuel Colledge

   in Cambridge

4. the Authour of Pigmalions

   Image, and certaine Satyrs

5. the Author of Skialetheia

Among the Greekes I wil name but two for Iambicks

1. Archilochus Parius, and

2. Hipponax Ephesius:

SO amongst us I name but two Iambical Poets

1. Gabriel Harvey, and

2. Richard Stanyhurst,

bicause I have seene no mo in this kind.

AS these are famous among the Greeks for Elegie

1. Melanthus

2. Mymnerus Colophonius

3. Olympius Mysius

4. Parthenius Nicaeus

5. Philetas Cous

6. Theogenes Megarenses, and

7. Pigres Halicarnassus;

and these among the Latines

8.  Mecaenas

9.  Ovid

10. Tibullus

11. Propertius

12. T. Valgius

13. Cassius Severus &

14. Clodius Sabinus:

SO these are the most passionate among us tobewaile and bemoane the perplexities of Love

1. Henrie Howard Earle of

   Surrey

2. Sir Thomas Wyat the elder

3. Sir Francis Brian

4. Sir Walter Rawley

5. Sir Edward Dyer

6. Spencer

7. Daniel

8. Drayton

9. Shakespeare

10.Whetstone

11. Gascoyne

12. Samuell Page sometime

    fellowe of Corpus Christi

    Colledge in Oxford

13. Churchyard

14. Bretton

AS

1. Theocritus in Greeke,

2. Virgil and

3. Mantua

   in Latine,

4. Sanazar

   in Italian, and

5. the Authour of Amynta

   Gaudia and Walsinghams

   Meliboe [my remark: Thomas

   Watson's elegy onWalsingham  in Latin]

   are the best for pastorall:

SO amongst us the best in this kind are

1. sir Philip Sidney

2. master Challener

3. Spencer

4. Stephen Gosson

5. Abraham Fraunce

6. Barnefield

These and many other Epigrammatists the Latin tongue hath

1. Q. Catulus

2. Porcius Licinius

3. Quintus Cornificius

4. Martial

5. Cn. Getulicus, and

6. wittie sir Thomas Moore:

SO in English we have these,

1. Heywood

2. Drante

3. Kendal

4. Bastard

5. Davies *

AS noble

1. Mecanas

that sprung from the Hetruscan Kinges not onely graced Poets by his bounty, but also by beeing a Poet himselfe

and AS

1. James the 6.

nowe king of Scotland is not only a favorer of Poets, but a Poet, as my friend master Richard Barnefield hath in this Disticke passing well recorderd:

The King of Scots now living is a Poet

As his Lepanto, and his furies

show it:

SO

1. Elizabeth

our dread sovereign and gracious Queene is not only a liberal patrone unto Poets, but an excellent Poet herselfe, whose learned, delicate and noble Muse surmounteth, be it in Ode, Elegy, Epigram, or in any other kind of Poem Heroicke, or Lyricke

1. Octavia

sister unto Augustus the Emperour was exceeding bountifull unto Virgil, who gave him for making 26 verses, 1137 pounds, to wit, tenne Sestertiaes for everie verse, which amount to above 43 pounds for every verse:

SO

1. learned Mary,

the honourable Countesse of Pembrook, the noble sister of immortall sir Philip Sidney, is very liberall unto Poets; besides shee is a most delicate Poet, of whome I may say, as Antipater Sidonius writeth of Sappho:

Dulcia Mnemosyne demirans carmina Sapphus

Quaesinit decima Pieris unde foret.

Among others in times past, Poets had these favourers

1. Augustus

2. Mecaenas

3. Sophocles

4. Germanicus,

an Emperour, a noble man, a Senatour, and a Captaine:

SO of later time Poets have these  patrones

1. Robert king of Sicil

2. the great king Frances of

   France

3. king James of Scotland, &

4. Queene Elizabeth of

   England.

AS in former times two great Cardinals,

1. Bembus &

2. Biena,

did countenance Poets:

SO of late years two great preachers have given them their right hands in felowship,

1. Beza and

2. Melancthon

AS the learned philosophers

1. Fracastorius and

2. Scaliger

have highly prized them:

SO have the eloquent Orators

1. Pontanus and

2. Muretus

verygloriously estimated them.

AS

1. Georgius Buchananus

Iepthe, amongst all moderne Tragedies is able to abide the touch of Aristotles precepts, and

1. Euripides examples:

SO is

1. Bishop Watsons

Absalon.

AS

1. Terence

for his translations out of Appolodorus & Menander, and

2. Aquilus

for his translation out of Menander, and

3. C. Germanicus Augustus

for his out of Aratus, and

4. Ausonius

for his translated Epigrams out of Greeke, and

5. Doctor Johnson

for his Frogge-fight out of Homer, and

6. Watson

for his Antigone out of Sophocles, have good commendations: 

SO these versifiers fot their learned translations are of good note among us,

1. Phaere

for Virgils Aeneads,

2. Golding

for Ovids Metamorphosis

3. Harington

for his Orlando Furioso

4. the translators of Senecas

   Tragedies

5. Barnabe Googe

for Palingenius

6. Turbervile

for Ovids Epistles and Mantuan and

7. Chapman

for his inchoate Homer

AS the Latines have these Emblematists,

1. Andreas Alciatus,

2. Reusnerus, and

3. Sambucus:

SO we have these

1. Geffrey Whitney

2. Andrew Willet, and

3. Thomas Combe.

AS

1. Nonnus Panapolyta

writ the Gospell of saint John in Greek Hexameters:

SO

1. Gervas Markham

has written Salomons Canticles in English verse

AS

1. C. Plinius

writ the life of Pomponius Secundus:

SO

1. yong Charles Fitz-Ieffrey

that high touring Falcon, hath most gloriously penned the honourable life and death of worthy sir Francis Drake

AS

1. Hesiod

writ learnedly of husbandry in Greeke:

SO hath

1. Tusser

very wittily and experimentally written of it in English.

AS

1. Antipater Sidonius

was famous for extemporall verse in Greeke, and

2. Ovid

for his

Quicquid conabar dicere versus erat:

SO was our

1. Tarleton,

of whome Doctour Case that learned physitian thus speaketh in the seventh Booke, & seventeenth chapter   of his Politikes; Aristoteles suum Theodoretum laudavit quendam peritum Tragoediarum actorem; Cicero suum Roscium: nos Angle Tarletonum, in cuius voce & vultus omnes iocosi affectus, in cuius cerebroso capite lepida facetia habitant.

AND SO is now our wittie

2. Wilson, who, for learning and extemporall witte in this facultie, is without compare and compeere, as to his great and eternall commendations he manifested in his chalenge at the Swanne on the Banke side.

AS

1. Achilles

tortured the deade bodie of

1. Hector,

and as

2. Antonius, and his Fulvia

tormented the liveless corps

of

2. Cicero:

SO

1. Gabriell Harvey

hath shewed the same inhumanitie to

1. Greene

that lies full low in his grave.

AS

1. Eupolus of Athens

used great libertie in taxing the vices of men:

SO dooth

1. Thomas Nash,

witness the broode of the Harveys.

AS

1. Actaeon

was wooried of his owne hounds:

SO is

1. Tom Nash

of his Ile of Dogs. Dogges were the death of Euripides, but bee not disconsolate gallant young Juvenall, Linus, the sonne of Apollo died the same death. Yet God forbid that so brave a witte should so basely perish, thine are but paper dogges, neither is thy banishment like Ovids, eternally to converse with the barabrous Getes. Therefore comfort thy selfe sweete Tom, with Ciceros glorious return to Rome, & with the counsel Aeneas gives to his seabeaten soldiors, lib. I Aeneid.

Pluck up thine heart, & drive from thence both feare and care away:

To thinke on this may pleasure be perhaps another day,

Durato, & temet rebus servato secundis.

AS

1. Anacreon

died by the pot:

SO

1. George Peele

by the pox,

AS

1. Archesilaus Prytanaeus

perished by wine at a drunken feast, as

1. Hermippus

testifieth in Diogenes:

SO

1. Robert Greene

died of a surfet taken at Pickeld Herrings & Rhenish wine, as witnesseth

1. Thomas Nashe

who was at the fatall banquet.

AS

1. Jodelle,

a French tragical poet beeing an Epicure, and an Atheist, made a pitifull end:

SO our tragicall poet

1. Marlow

for his Epicurism and Atheisme had a tragicall death; you may read of this Marlow more at large in The Theatre of Gods iudgments, in the 25. chapter entreating of Epicures and Atheists.

AS

1. the poet Lycophron

was shot to death by a certain rival of his:

SO

1. Christopher Marlow

was stabd to death by a bawdy Servingman, a rivall of his in lewde lov