Wherein if we can show the
poet's nobleness, by setting him before his other competitors, among
whom as principal challengers step forth the moral philosophers, whom
methinketh I see coming towards me with a sullen gravity, as though
they could not abide vice by daylight, rudely clothed for to witness
outwardly their contempt of outward things, with books in their hands
against glory, whereto they set their names, sophistically speaking
against subtlety, and angry with any man in whom they see the foul
fault of anger; these men casting largess as they go, of definitions,
divisions, and distinctions, with a scornful interrogative, do soberly
ask, whether it be possible to find any path, so ready to lead a man
to virtue, as that which teacheth what virtue is? and teacheth it not
only by delivering forth his very being, his causes, and effects: but
also, by making known his enemy vice, which must be destroyed, and his
cumbersome servant passion, which must be mastered, by showing the
generalities that contain it, and the specialities that are derived
from it: lastly, by plain setting down, how it extendeth itself out
of the limits of a man's own little world, to the government of families
and maintaining of public societies.
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