_CHAP. XXX._

_Of short Epigrames called Posies._


There be also other like Epigrammes that were sent vsually for new yeares
giftes or to be Printed or put vpon their banketting dishes of suger
plate, or of march paines, & such other dainty meates as by the curtesie &
custome euery gest might carry from a common feast home with him to his
owne house, & were made for the nonce, they were called _Nenia_ or
_apophoreta_, and neuer contained aboue one verse, or two at the most, but
the shorter the better, we call them Posies, and do paint them now a dayes
vpon the backe sides of our fruite trenchers of wood, or vse them as
deuises in rings and armes and about such courtly purposes. So haue we
remembred and set forth to your Maiestie very briefly, all the commended
fourmes of the auncient Poesie, which we in our vulgare makings do imitate
and vse vnder these common names: enterlude, song, ballade, carroll and
ditty: borrowing them also from the French al sauing this word (song)
which is our naturall Saxon English word. The rest, such as time and
vsurpation by custome haue allowed vs out of the primitiue Greeke &
Latine, as Comedie, Tragedie, Ode, Epitaphe, Elegie, Epigramme, and other
moe. And we haue purposely omitted all nice or scholasticall curiosities
not meete for your Maiesties contemplation in this our vulgare arte, and
what we haue written of the auncient formes of Poemes, we haue taken from
the best clerks writing in the same arte. The part that next followeth to
wit of proportion, because the Greeks nor Latines neuer had it in vse, nor
made any obseruation, no more then we doe of their feete, we may truly