ABSTRACT
From A Supplement of the Faery Queene, in three Bookes. Wherein are allegorically described Affaires both military and ciuill of these times, Cambridge University Library MS. Ee. 3. 53, fols. vii-ix, xv:
The end of writeing Bookes, should be rather to informe the vnderstanding, then please the fancy: I haue knowne many great witts, as ambitious as Ixion, committ adultery with the clouds, and begett Monsters, either as deformed, as that absurd picture which Horace speaketh of in his Booke de Arte Poet. or like the Thebane Sphinx, vttering vnnecessary aenigmaes. Such volumes, or (like the Ghost of Euridice) vanish as soone as they are view'd, or stand as trophyes, of their Authors vanityes to posterity: But if the sayeing of the Poet stands for an infallible truth:
Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit vtile dulci [Horace, Ars Poetica 343]
Then our learned Spencer through whose whole Booke, a Grace seemes to walke arme in arme with a Muse, did merit best an honorarye garlande, from that Tree which Petrarch calleth
[Petrarch, Rime CCLXIII]
The worke being such
Homer the fountaine of the arts, yea from whom graue Philosophy deriues her pedigree, did first deuise that kind of heroicke poesy, which is of force, not onely to temper the affections, but also to rectifye the will, and direct the vnderstanding. Wee reade of Agamemnon, that hee beinge ingaged in the Troiane expedition, left a Doricke Musicion to attend vpon his Wife Clytemnestra, who with his graue spondaicke numbers, maintained in her such a coniugall chastity, that Ageisthus the Adulterer, could no way tempt her to lightnes, vntill he had cruelly destroyed this harmonious Guardian of her vertue. Euen so doth diuine Poesye, excite the ingenious, such an ardent affection of goodnes, and detestation of fice, that precepts taken either from Platos Academye, or Aristotles Lycaeum, produce not the like effects: Therefore did Horace write thus to his friend:
Troiani belli scriptorem, (Maxime Lolli) Dum tu declamas Romae, Praenesti velegi, Qui quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid vtile, quid non, Plenius, ac meUus Chrysippo, et Crantore dicet.
