the Spanish, and therefore very gracelessly may they use dactiles.
The English is subject to none of these defects.

Now for rhyme, though we do not observe quantity, we observe the
accent very precisely, which other languages either cannot do, or
will not do so absolutely. That "caesura," or breathing-place, in
the midst of the verse, neither Italian nor Spanish have, the French
and we never almost fail of. Lastly, even the very rhyme itself the
Italian cannot put in the last syllable, by the French named the
masculine rhyme, but still in the next to the last, which the French
call the female; or the next before that, which the Italian calls
"sdrucciola:" the example of the former is, "buono," "suono;" of the
sdrucciola is, "femina," "semina." The French, of the other side,
hath both the male, as "bon," "son," and the female, as "plaise,"
"taise;" but the "sdrucciola" he hath not; where the English hath
all three, as "due," "true," "father," "rather," "motion," "potion;"
with much more which might be said, but that already I find the
trifling of this discourse is much too much enlarged.

So {97} that since the ever praiseworthy poesy is full of virtue,
breeding delightfulness, and void of no gift that ought to be in the
noble name of learning; since the blames laid against it are either
false or feeble; since the cause why it is not esteemed in England
is the fault of poet-apes, not poets; since, lastly, our tongue is
most fit to honour poesy, and to be honoured by poesy; I conjure you
all that have had the evil luck to read this ink-wasting toy of
mine, even in the name of the Nine Muses, no more to scorn the
sacred mysteries of poesy; no more to laugh at the name of poets, as
though they were next inheritors to fools; no more to jest at the
reverend title of "a rhymer;" but to believe, with Aristotle, that