[5] As HORACE, LUCILIUS, JUVENAL, PERSIUS, and LUCULLUS are the best for Satire among the Latins:  so with us, in the same faculty, these are chief [WILLIAM LANGLAND, the author of] PIERS PLOWMAN, [T.] LODGE, [JOSEPH] HALL of Emmanuel College in Cambridge [afterwards Bishop of NORWICH]; [JOHN MARSTON] the Author of PYGMALION’s Image, and certain Satires; the Author of Skialetheia.

[6] Among the Greeks, I will name but two for Iambics, ARCHILOCHUS Parius and HIPPONAX Ephesius:  so amongst us, I name but two Iambical poets; GABRIEL HARVEY and RICHARD STANYHURST, because I have seen no more in this kind.

[7] As these are famous among the Greeks for Elegies, MELANTHUS, MYMNERUS Colophonius, OLYMPIUS Mysius, PARTHENIUS Nicoeus, PHILETAS Cous, THEOGENES Megarensis, and PIGRES Halicarnassoeus; and these among the Latins, MAECENAS, OVID, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS, C. VALGIUS, CASSIUS SEVERUS, and CLODIUS Sabinus:  so these are the most passionate among us to bewail and bemoan the perplexities of love, HENRY HOWARD, Earl of SURREY, Sir THOMAS WYATT the Elder, Sir FRANCIS BRYAN, Sir PHILIP SIDNEY, Sir WALTER RALEIGH, Sir EDWARD DYER, SPENSER, DANIEL, DRAYTON, SHAKESPEARE, WHETSTONE, GASCOIGNE, SAMUEL PAGE sometime Fellow of Corpus Christi College in Oxford, CHURCHYARD, BRETON.

[8] As THEOCRITUS in Greek; VIRGIL and MANTUAN in Latin, SANNAZAR in Italian, and [THOMAS WATSON] the Author of AMINTAE Gaudia and WALSINGHAM’s MELIBOEUS are the best for Pastoral:  so amongst us the best in this kind are Sir PHILIP SIDNEY, Master CHALLONER, SPENSER, STEPHEN GOSSON, ABRAHAM FRAUNCE, and BARNFIELD.

These and many other Epigrammatists, the Latin tongue hath; Q. CATULLUS, PORCIUS LICINIUS, QUINTUS CORNIFICIUS, MARTIAL, CNOEUS GETULICUS, and witty Sir THOMAS MORE:  so in English we have these, HEYWOOD, DRANT, KENDAL, BASTARD, DAVIES.

As noble MAECENAS, that sprang from the Etruscan Kings, not only graced poets by his bounty, but also by being a poet himself; and as JAMES VI., now King of Scotland, is not only a favourer of poets, but a poet; as my friend Master RICHARD BARNFELD hath in this distich passing well recorded,

    The King of Scots now living is a poet,
    As his Lepanto and his Furies show it: 

so ELIZABETH, our dread Sovereign and gracious Queen, is not only a liberal Patron unto poets, but an excellent poet herself; whose learned, delicate and noble Muse surmounteth, be it in Ode, Elegy, Epigram; or in any other kind of poem, Heroic or Lyric.

OCTAVIA, sister unto AUGUSTUS the Emperor, was exceeding[ly] bountiful unto VIRGIL, who gave him for making twenty-six verses, L1,137, to wit, ten sestertiae for every verse (which amounted to above L43 for every verse):  so learned MARY, the honourable Countess of PEMBROKE [and] the noble sister of the immortal Sir PHILIP SIDNEY, is very liberal unto poets.  Besides, she is a most delicate poet, of whom I may say, as ANTIPATER Sidonius writeth of SAPPHO: