within the circle of a question, according to the proposed matter.
The physician weigheth the nature of man's body, and the nature of
things helpful and hurtful unto it. And the metaphysic, though it
be in the second and abstract notions, and therefore be counted
supernatural, yet doth he, indeed, build upon the depth of nature.
Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted
up with the vigour of his own invention, doth grow, in effect, into
another nature; in making things either better than nature bringeth
forth, or quite anew; forms such as never were in nature, as the
heroes, demi-gods, Cyclops, chimeras, furies, and such like; so as
he goeth hand in hand with Nature, not enclosed within the narrow
warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging within the zodiac of his
own wit. {13} Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry
as divers poets have done; neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful
trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-
much-loved earth more lovely; her world is brazen, the poets only
deliver a golden.

But let those things alone, and go to man; {14} for whom as the
other things are, so it seemeth in him her uttermost cunning is
employed; and know, whether she have brought forth so true a lover
as Theagenes; so constant a friend as Pylades; so valiant a man as
Orlando; so right a prince as Xenophon's Cyrus; and so excellent a
man every way as Virgil's AEneas? Neither let this be jestingly
conceived, because the works of the one be essential, the other in
imitation or fiction; for every understanding knoweth the skill of
each artificer standeth in that idea, or fore-conceit of the work,
and not in the work itself. And that the poet hath that idea is
manifest by delivering them forth in such excellency as he had
imagined them; which delivering forth, also, is not wholly