Yet confess I always, that as
the fertilest ground must be manured, so must the highest-flying wit
have a Dadalus to guide him. That Dadalus, they say, both in this and
in other, hath three wings, to bear itself up into the air of due
commendation: that is, art, imitation, and exercise. But these, neither
artificial rules, nor imitative patterns, we much cumber ourselves
withal. Exercise indeed we do, but that, very fore-backwardly: for
where we should exercise to know, we exercise as having known: and so
is our brain delivered of much matter, which never was begotten by
knowledge. For, there being two principal parts, matter to be expressed
by words, and words to express the matter, in neither, we use art, or
imitation, rightly. Our matter is _quodlibet_ indeed, though wrongly
performing Ovid's verse,
_Quicquid conabar dicere versus erat:_
never marshalling it into an assured rank, that almost the readers
cannot tell where to find themselves.
Chaucer undoubtedly did excellently in his _Troilus and Cresseid_; of
whom, truly I know not whether to marvel more, either that he in that
misty time, could see so clearly, or that we in this clear age walk
so stumblingly after him.
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