The lawyer saith what men have determined. The
historian what men have done. The grammarian speaketh only of the rules
of speech; and the rhetorician, and logician, considering what in
nature will soonest prove and persuade, thereon give artificial rules,
which still are compassed within the circle of a question, according
to the proposed matter. The physician weigheth the nature of a man's
body, and the nature of things helpful, or hurtful unto it. And the
metaphysic, though it be in the second and abstract notions, and
therefore be counted supernatural, yet doth he indeed build upon the
depth of nature: only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such
subjection, lifted up with the vigour of his own invention, doth grow
in effect another nature, in making things either better than nature
bringeth forth, or quite anew forms such as never were in nature, as
the heroes, demigods, cyclops, chimeras, furies, and such like: so as
he goeth hand in hand with nature, not inclosed within the narrow
warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging only within the zodiac of his
own wit.
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