childhood, met with this verse -


Arma amens capio, nec sat rationis in armis


and in his age performed it. Although it were a very vain and
godless superstition; as also it was, to think spirits were
commanded by such verses; whereupon this word charms, derived of
"carmina," cometh, so yet serveth it to show the great reverence
those wits were held in; and altogether not without ground, since
both the oracles of Delphi and the Sibyl's prophecies were wholly
delivered in verses; for that same exquisite observing of number and
measure in the words, and that high-flying liberty of conceit proper
to the poet, did seem to have some divine force in it.

And {10} may not I presume a little farther to show the
reasonableness of this word "vates," and say, that the holy David's
Psalms are a divine poem? If I do, I shall not do it without the
testimony of great learned men, both ancient and modern. But even
the name of Psalms will speak for me, which, being interpreted, is
nothing but Songs; then, that is fully written in metre, as all
learned Hebricians agree, although the rules be not yet fully found.
Lastly, and principally, his handling his prophecy, which is merely
poetical. For what else is the awaking his musical instruments; the
often and free changing of persons; his notable prosopopoeias, when
he maketh you, as it were, see God coming in His majesty; his
telling of the beasts' joyfulness, and hills leaping; but a heavenly
poesy, wherein, almost, he sheweth himself a passionate lover of
that unspeakable and everlasting beauty, to be seen by the eyes of