subtiltie of deuice, good method and proportion in any
forme of poeme, but that they may compare with the most, and perchance
passe a great many of them. And I will not reach aboue the time of king
_Edward_ the third, and _Richard_ the second for any that wrote in English
meeter: because before their times by reason of the late Normane conquest,
which had brought into this Realme much alteration both of our langage and
lawes, and there withall a certain martiall barbarousnes, whereby the
study of all good learning was so much decayd, as long time after no man
or very few entended to write in any laudable science: so as beyond that
time there is litle or nothing worth commendation to be founde written in
this arte. And those of the first age were _Chaucer_ and _Gower_ both of
them as I suppose Knightes. After whom followed _Iohn Lydgate_ the monke
of Bury, & that nameles, who wrote the _Satyre_ called Piers Plowman, next
him followed _Harding_ the Chronicler, then in king _Henry_ th'eight times
_Skelton_, (I wot not for what great worthines) surnamed the Poet
_Laureat_. In the latter end of the same kings raigne sprong vp a new
company of courtly makers, of whom Sir _Thomas Wyat_ th'elder & _Henry_
Earle of Surrey were the two chieftaines, who hauing trauailed into
Italie, and there tasted the sweete and stately measures and stile of the
Italian Poesie as nouices newly crept out of the schooles of _Dante
Arioste_ and _Petrarch_, they greatly pollished our rude & homely maner of
vulgar Poesie, from that it had bene before, and for that cause may iustly
be sayd the first reformers of our English meetre and stile. In the same
time or not long after was the Lord _Nicholas Vaux_, a man of much
facilitie in vulgar makings. Afterward in king _Edward_ the sixths time
came to be in reputation for the same facultie _Thomas Sternehold_, who
first translated into English certaine Psalmes of Dauid, and _Iohn
Hoywood_ the Epigrammatist who for the myrth and quicknesse of his
conceits more then for any good learning was in him came to be well
benefited by the king. But the principall man in this profession at the
same time was Maister _Edward Ferrys_ a man of no lesse mirth & felicitie
that way, but of much more skil, & magnificence in this meeter, and
therefore wrate for the most part to the stage, in Tragedie and sometimes
in Comedie or Enterlude, wherein he gaue the king so much good recreation,
as he had thereby many good rewardes. I