requiring. _Catullus_ hath made of them one or two very artificiall and
ciuil: but none more excellent then of late yeares a young noble man of
Germanie as I take it _Iohannes secundus_ who in that and in his poeme _De
basis_, passeth any of the auncient or moderne Poetes in my iudgment.




_CHAP. XXVII._

_The manner of Poesie by which they uttered their bitter taunts, and priuy
nips, or witty scoffes and other merry conceits._


Bvt all the world could not keepe, nor any ciuill ordinance to the
contrary so preuaile, but that men would and must needs vtter their
splenes in all ordinarie matters also: or else it seemed their bowels
would burst, therefore the poet deuised a prety fashioned poeme short and
sweete (as we are wont to say) and called it _Epigramma_ in which euery
mery conceited man might without any long studie or tedious ambage, make
his frend sport, and anger his foe, and giue a prettie nip, or shew a
sharpe conceit in few verses: for this _Epigramme_ is but an inscription
or writting made as it were vpon a table, or in a windowe, or vpon the
wall or mantel of a chimney in some place of common resort, where it was
allowed euery man might come, or be sitting to chat and prate, as now in
our tauernes and common tabling houses, where many merry heades meete, and
scrible with ynke with chalke, or with a cole such matters as they would
euery man should know, & descant vpon. Afterward the same came to be put
in paper and in bookes, and vsed as ordinarie missiues, some of frendship,
some of defiaunce, or as other messages of mirth: _Martiall_ was the