“No tongue can her perfections tell,
        In whose each part, all tongues may dwell.”

Most of your lovers are of his humour and opinion.  She is nulli secunda, a rare creature, a phoenix, the sole commandress of his thoughts, queen of his desires, his only delight:  as [5400]Triton now feelingly sings, that lovesick sea-god: 

       “Candida Leucothoe placet, et placet atra Melaene,
        Sed Galatea placet longe magis omnibus una.”

       “Fair Leucothe, black Melene please me well,
        But Galatea doth by odds the rest excel.”

All the gracious elogies, metaphors, hyperbolical comparisons of the best things in the world, the most glorious names; whatsoever, I say, is pleasant, amiable, sweet, grateful, and delicious, are too little for her.

       “Phoebo pulchrior et sorore Phoebi.”

       “His Phoebe is so fair, she is so bright,
        She dims the sun’s lustre, and the moon’s light.”

Stars, sun, moons, metals, sweet-smelling flowers, odours, perfumes, colours, gold, silver, ivory, pearls, precious stones, snow, painted birds, doves, honey, sugar, spice, cannot express her, [5401]so soft, so tender, so radiant, sweet, so fair is she.—­Mollior cuniculi capillo, &c.

[5402] “Lydia bella, puelia candida,
        Quae bene superas lac, et lilium,
        Albamque simul rosam et rubicundam,
        Et expolitum ebur Indicum.”

       “Fine Lydia, my mistress, white and fair,
        The milk, the lily do not thee come near;
        The rose so white, the rose so red to see,
        And Indian ivory comes short of thee.”

Such a description our English Homer makes of a fair lady

[5403] That Emilia that was fairer to seen,
        Then is lily upon the stalk green: 
        And fresher then May with flowers new,
        For with the rose colour strove her hue,
        I no’t which was the fairer of the two.

In this very phrase [5404]Polyphemus courts Galatea: 

       “Candidior folio nivei Galatea ligustri,
        Floridior prato, longa procerior alno,
        Splendidior vitro, tenero lascivior haedo, &c. 
        Mollior et cygni plumis, et lacte coacto.”

       “Whiter Galet than the white withie-wind,
        Fresher than a field, higher than a tree,
        Brighter than glass, more wanton than a kid,
        Softer than swan’s down, or ought that may be.”

So she admires him again, in that conceited dialogue of Lucian, which John Secundus, an elegant Dutch modern poet, hath translated into verse.  When Doris and those other sea nymphs upbraided her with her ugly misshapen lover, Polyphemus; she replies, they speak out of envy and malice,

[5405] “Et plane invidia huc mera vos stimulare videtur. 
        Quod non vos itidem ut me Polyphemus amet;”