{4}

Let learned Greece, in any of her manifold sciences, be able to show
me one book before Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiod, all three nothing
else but poets. Nay, let any history he brought that can say any
writers were there before them, if they were not men of the same
skill, as Orpheus, Linus, and some others are named, who having been
the first of that country that made pens deliverers of their
knowledge to posterity, may justly challenge to be called their
fathers in learning. For not only in time they had this priority
(although in itself antiquity be venerable) but went before them as
causes to draw with their charming sweetness the wild untamed wits
to an admiration of knowledge. So as Amphion was said to move
stones with his poetry to build Thebes, and Orpheus to be listened
to by beasts, indeed, stony and beastly people, so among the Romans
were Livius Andronicus, and Ennius; so in the Italian language, the
first that made it to aspire to be a treasure-house of science, were
the poets Dante, Boccace, and Petrarch; so in our English were Gower
and Chaucer; after whom, encouraged and delighted with their
excellent foregoing, others have followed to beautify our mother
tongue, as well in the same kind as other arts.

This {5} did so notably show itself that the philosophers of Greece
durst not a long time appear to the world but under the mask of
poets; so Thales, Empedocles, and Parmenides sang their natural
philosophy in verses; so did Pythagoras and Phocylides their moral
counsels; so did Tyrtaeus in war matters; and Solon in matters of
policy; or rather they, being poets, did exercise their delightful
vein in those points of highest knowledge, which before them lay
hidden to the world; for that wise Solon was directly a poet it is