as they._

[Sidenote: _Periphrasis_, or the Figure of ambage.]
Then haue ye the figure _Periphrasis_, holding somewhat of the disembler,
by reason of a secret intent not appearing by the words, as when we go
about the bush, and will not in one or a few words expresse that thing
which we desire to haue knowen, but do chose rather to do it by many
words, as we our selues wrote of our Soueraigne Lady thus:
_Whom Princes serue, and Realmes obay,
And greatest of Bryton kings begot:
She came abroade euen yesterday,
When such as saw her, knew her not._

And the rest that followeth, meaning her Maiesties person, which we would
seeme to hide leauing her name vnspoken to the intent the reader should
gesse at it: neuerthelesse vpon the matter did so manifestly disclose it,
as any simple iudgement might easily perceiue by whom it was ment, that is
by Lady _Elizabeth, Queene of England and daughter to king Henry the
eight_, and therein resteth the dissimulation. It is one of the gallantest
figures among the poetes so it be vsed discretely and in his right kinde,
but many of these makers that be not halfe their craftes maisters, do very
often abuse it and also many waies. For if the thing or person they go
about to describe by circumstance, be by the writers improuidence
otherwise bewrayed, it looseth the grace of a figure, as he that said:
_The tenth of March when Aries receiued,
Dan Phoebus raies into his horned hed._

Intending to describe the spring of the yeare, which euery man knoweth of
himselfe, hearing the day of March named: the verses be very good the
figure nought worth, if it were meant in Periphrase for the matter, that
is the season of the yeare which should haue bene couertly disclosed by
ambage, was by and by blabbed out by naming the day of the moneth, & so
the purpose of the figure disapointed, peraduenture it had bin better to
haue said thus:
_The month and date when Aries receiud,
Dan Phoebus raies into his horned head._

For now there remaineth for the Reader somewhat to studie and gesse vpon,
and yet the spring time to the learned iudgement sufficiently expressed.

The Noble Earle of Surrey wrote thus:
_In winters iust returne, when Boreas gan his raigne,
And euery tree vnclothed him fast as nature taught them plaine._

I would faine learne of some good maker, whether the Earle spake this in
figure of _Periphrase_ or not, for mine owne opinion I thinke that if he
ment to describe