And certain it is that, in our plainest homeliness, yet
never was the Albion nation without poetry. Marry, this argument,
though it be levelled against poetry, yet is it indeed a chain-shot
against all learning, or bookishness, as they commonly term it. Of
such mind were certain Goths, of whom it is written that, having in
the spoils of a famous city taken a fair library, one hangman (belike
fit to execute the fruits of their wits) who had murdered a great
number of bodies, would have set fire on it. "No", said another very
gravely, "take heed what you do, for while they are busy about these
toys, we shall with more leisure conquer their countries."
This indeed is the ordinary doctrine of ignorance, and many words
sometimes I have heard spent in it; but because this reason is generally
against all learning, as well as poetry; or rather, all learning but
poetry: because it were too large a digression to handle, or at least
too superfluous: (sith it is manifest that all government of action
is to be gotten by knowledge, and knowledge best by gathering many
knowledges, which is, reading), I only with Horace, to him that is of
that opinion,
_Jubeo stultum esse libenter:_
for as for poetry itself, it is the freest from this objection.
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