becoming the matter of that pleasaunt pilgrimage in which euery mans part
is playd with much decency. _Gower_ sauing for his good and graue
moralities, had nothing in him highly to be commended, for his verse was
homely and without good measure, his wordes strained much deale out of the
French writers, his ryme wrested, and in his inuentions small subtillitie:
the applications of his moralities are the best in him, and yet those many
times very grossely bestowed, neither doth the substance of his workes
sufficiently aunswere the subtilitie of his titles. _Lydgat_ a translatour
onely and no deuiser of that which he wrate, but one that wrate in good
verse. _Harding_ a Poet Epick or Historicall, handled himselfe well
according to the time and maner of his subiect. He that wrote the Satyr of
Piers Ploughman, seemed to haue bene a malcontent of that time, and
therefore bent himselfe wholly to taxe the disorders of that age, and
specially the pride of the Romane Clergy, of whose fall he seemeth to be a
very true Prophet, his verse is but loose meetre, and his termes hard and
obscure, so as in them is litle pleasure to be taken. _Skelton_ a sharpe
Satirist, but with more rayling and scoffery then became a Poet Lawreat,
such among the Greekes were called _Pantomimi_, with vs Buffons,
altogether applying their wits to Scurrillities & other ridiculous
matters. _Henry_ Earle of Surrey and Sir _Thomas Wyat_, betweene whom I
finde very litle difference, I repute them (as before) for the two chief
lanternes of light to all others that haue since employed their pennes
vpon English Poesie, their conceits were loftie, their stiles stately,
their conueyance cleanely, their termes proper, their meetre sweete and
well proportioned, in all imitating very naturally and studiously their
Maister _Francis Petrarcha_. The Lord _Vaux_ his commendation lyeth
chiefly in the facillitie of his meetre, and the aptnesse of his
descriptions such as he taketh vpon him to make, namely in sundry of his
Songs, wherein he sheweth the counterfait action very liuely & pleasantly.
Of the later sort I thinke thus. That for Tragedie, the Lord of Buckhurst,