Entelechy and addoulce. With these two Hermo­
phrodite phrases, being halfe Latin and halfe English, 
hast thou puld out the very guts of the inkehorne.




The floures of your Foure Letters it may be I haue
ouerlookt more narrowlie, and done my best deuoire 
to assemble them together into patheticall posie, 
which I will here present to Maister Orator Edge for 
a New yeares gift, leauing them to his wordie discre­
tion to be censured whether they be currant in inke­
hornisme or no.


Conscious mind: canicular tales: egregious an argu­
ment: when as egregious is neuer vsed in english but in
the extreame ill part. Ingenuitie: Iouiall mind: va­
larous Authors: inckehorne aduentures: inckehorne 
pads: putatiue opinions: putatiue artists: energeticall 
persuasions: Rascallitie: materiallitie: artificiallitie, 
Fantasticallitie: diuine Entelechy: loud Mentery: deceit­
full perfidy: addicted to Theory: the worlds great In­
cendiarie: sirenized furies: soueraigntie immense: abun­
dant Cauteles: cautelous and aduentrous: cordiall liquor:
Catilinaries and Phillipicks: perfunctorie discourses:
Dauids sweetnes olimpique: The Idee high and deepe 
Abisse of excellence: The only Vnicorne of the Muses: 
the Aretinish mountaine of huge exaggerations: The 
gratious law of Amnesty: amicable termes: amicable



end: Effectuate: addoulce his melodie: Magy polime­
chany: extensiuely emploid: precious Traynment: No­
uellets: Notorietie negotiation: mechanician.

Nor are these all, for euerie third line hath some of 
this ouer-rackt absonisme. Nor do I altogether scum 
off all these as the newe ingendred fome of the Eng­
lish, but allowe some of them for a neede to fill vp a 
verse; as Traynment, and one or two wordes more, 
which the libertie of prose might well haue spar'd. 
In a verse, when a worde of three sillables cannot 
thrust in but sidelings, to ioynt him euen, we are of­
tentimes faine to borrowe some lesser quarry of elo­
cution from the Latine, alwaies retaining this for a 
principle, that a leake of indesinence as a leake in a 
shippe, must needly bee stopt, with what matter soe­
uer.

Chaucers authoritie I am certaine shalbe alleadgd
against mee for a many of these balductums. Had
Chaucer liu'd to this age, I am verily perswaded hee
would haue discarded the tone halfe of the harsher
sort of them,

They were the Oouse which ouerflowing barba­
risme, withdrawne to her Scottish Northren chanell, 
had left behind her. Art like yong grasse in the spring 
of Chaucers florishing, was glad to peepe vp through 
any slime of corruption, to be beholding to she car'd 
not whome for apparaile, trauailing in those colde 
countries. There is no reason that shee a banisht 
Queene into this barraine soile, hauing monarchizd 
it so long amongst the Greeks and Romanes, should 
(although warres furie had humbled her to some ex­
tremitie) still be constrained when she hath recouerd 
her state, to weare the robes of aduersitie, iet it in her 
old rags, when she is wedded to new prosperitie.



Vtere moribus præteritis, saith Caius Cæsar in Au­
lus Gellius, loquere verbis præsentibus.

Thou art mine enemie Gabriell, and that which is
more, a contemptible vnder-foote enemie, or else I 
would teach thy olde Trewantship the true vse of 
words, as also how more inclinable verse is than prose 
to dance after the horrizonant pipe of inueterate an­
tiquitie.

It is no matter, since thou hast brought godly in­
struction out of loue with thee, vse thy own destruc­
tion, raigne sole Emperour of inkehornisme, I wish 
vnto thee all superabundant increase of the singu­
lar gifts of absurditie, and vaineglory: from this time 
forth for euer, euer, euer, euermore maist thou be ca­
nonized as the Nun parreille of impious epistles, the 
short shredder out of sunday sentences without lime, 
as Quintillian tearmed Seneca all lime, and no sande; 
all matter, and no circumstance; the factor for the Fai­
ries, and night Vrchins, in supplanting and setting a­
side the true children of the English, and suborning 
inkehorne changlings in their steade, the galimafrier 
of all stiles in one standish, as imitating euerie one, & 
hauing no seperate forme of writing of thy owne; and 
to conclude, the onely feather-driuer of phrases, and 
putter of a good word to it when thou hast once got 
it, that is betwixt this and the Alpes. So bee it worlde 
without ende. Chroniclers heare my praiers. Good 
Maister Stowe be not vnmindfull of him.