Is it, then, the pastoral poem which is misliked? {46} For,
perchance, where the hedge is lowest, they will soonest leap over.
Is the poor pipe disdained, which sometimes, out of Melibaeus's
mouth, can show the misery of people under hard lords and ravening
soldiers? And again, by Tityrus, what blessedness is derived to
them that lie lowest from the goodness of them that sit highest?
Sometimes under the pretty tales of wolves and sheep, can include
the whole considerations of wrong doing and patience; sometimes
show, that contentions for trifles can get but a trifling victory;
where, perchance, a man may see that even Alexander and Darius, when
they strove who should be cock of this world's dunghill, the benefit
they got was, that the after-livers may say,


"Haec memini, et victum frustra contendere Thyrsim.
Ex illo Corydon, Corydon est tempore nobis." {47}


Or is it the lamenting elegiac, {48} which, in a kind heart, would
move rather pity than blame; who bewaileth, with the great
philosopher Heraclitus, the weakness of mankind, and the
wretchedness of the world; who, surely, is to be praised, either for
compassionately accompanying just causes of lamentations, or for
rightly pointing out how weak be the passions of wofulness?

Is it the bitter, but wholesome iambic, {49} who rubs the galled
mind, making shame the trumpet of villany, with bold and open crying
out against naughtiness?