_Sed quid vobis videtur magnis philosophis?_ I like your late
Englishe hexameters so exceedingly well, that I also enure my penne
sometime in that kinde: whyche I fynd, indeede, as I haue heard you
often defende in worde, neither so harde nor so harshe, that it will
easily and fairely yeelde it selfe to oure moother tongue. For the onely
or chiefest hardnesse whych seemeth is in the accente, whyche sometime
gapeth, and as it were yawneth ilfauouredly, comming shorte of that it
should, and sometime exceeding the measure of the number; as in
_carpenter_, the middle sillable being vsed shorte in speache, when it
shall be read long in verse, seemeth like a lame gosling, that draweth
one legge after hir: and _heauen_, beeing vsed shorte as one sillable,
when it is in verse, stretched out with a _diastole_, is like a lame
dogge that holdes vp one legge. But it is to be wonne with custome, and
rough words must be subdued with vse. For why, a God's name, may not we,
as else the Greekes, haue the kingdome of oure owne language, and
measure our accents by the sounde, reseruing the quantitie to the verse?
Loe, here I let you see my olde vse of toying in rymes, turned into your
artificiall straightnesse of verse by this _tetrasticon_.
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