"Not the like _Discourser_, for Tongue and head: to be found out;
Not the like _resolute Man_, for great and serious affayres;
Not the like _Lynx_, to spie out secretes and priuities of States;
_Eyed_ like to _Argus, Earde_ like to _Midas, Nosd_ like to _Naso_,
Wingd like to _Mercury_, fitist of a Thousand for to be employed."
And here are a few from "worthy M. Stanyhurst's" translation of the
"AEneid."
"Laocoon storming from Princelis Castel is hastning,
And a far of beloing: What fond phantastical harebraine
Madnesse hath enchaunted your wits, you townsmen unhappie?
Weene you (blind hodipecks) the Greekish nauie returned,
Or that their presents want craft? is subtil Vlissis
So soone forgotten? My life for an haulf-pennie (Trojans)," etc.
Mr. Abraham Fraunce translates two verses of Heliodorus thus:--
"Now had fyery Phlegon his dayes reuolution ended,
And his snoring snowt with salt waues all to bee washed."
Witty Tom Nash was right enough when he called this kind of stuff,
"that drunken, staggering kinde of verse which is all vp hill and downe
hill, like the waye betwixt Stamford and Becchfeeld, and goes like a
horse plunging through the myre in the deep of winter, now soust up to
the saddle, and straight aloft on his tiptoes.
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