mere barbariousnes vnto it, writyng thus vnto his frend _Atticus_: There is not one scruple of siluer in that whole // Ad Att. Isle, or any one that knoweth either learnyng or // Lib. iv. Ep. letter. // 16. But now master _Cicero_, blessed be God, and his sonne Iesu Christ, whom you neuer knew, except it were as it pleased him to lighten you by some shadow, as couertlie in one place ye confesse saying: _Veritatis tantum vmbram consectamur_, // Offic. as your Master _Plato_ did before you: blessed be God, I say, that sixten hundred yeare after you were dead and gone, it may trewly be sayd, that for siluer, there is more cumlie plate, in one Citie of England, than is in foure of the proudest Cities in all _Italie_, and take _Rome_ for one of them. And for learnyng, beside the knowledge of all learned tongs and liberall sciences, euen your owne bookes _Cicero_, be as well read, and your excellent eloquence is as well liked and loued, and as trewlie folowed in England at this day, as it is now, or euer was, sence your owne tyme, in any place of _Italie_, either at _Arpinum_, where ye were borne, or els at _Rome_ where ye were brought vp. And a litle to brag with you _Cicero_, where you your selfe, by your leaue, halted in some point of learnyng in your owne tong, many in England at this day go streight vp, both in trewe skill, and right doing therein. This I write, not to reprehend _Tullie_, whom, aboue all other, I like and loue best, but to excuse _Terence_, because in his tyme, and a good while after, Poetrie was neuer perfited in _Latin_ vntill by trew _Imitation_ of the Grecians, it was at length brought to perfection: And also thereby to exhorte the goodlie wittes of England, which apte by nature, & willing by desire, geue them selues to Poetrie, that they, rightly vnderstanding the barbarous bringing in of Rymes, would labor, as _Virgil_ and _Horace_ did in Latin, to make perfit also this point of learning, in our English tong. And thus much for _Plautus_ and _Terence_, for matter, tong, and meter, what is to be followed, and what to be exchewed in them. After _Plautus_ and _Terence_, no writing remayneth vntill _Tullies_ tyme, except a fewe short fragmentes of _L. Crassus_ excellent wit, here and there recited of _Cicero_ for example sake, whereby the louers of learnyng may the more lament the losse of soch a worthie witte.