...severely, and perhaps truly, describes in his State of Ireland, and whose poems, he tells us, "Were sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural...device, which gave good grace and comeliness unto them, the which it is great pity to see abused to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which, with good usage,...

...songs of the Irish bards to be translated that he might understand them, ''and surely," he says, " they savoured of sweet wit and good invention, but skilled not of the goodly ornaments of poetry ; yea, they were sprinked with some pretty flowers of their natural device which gave good grace and...

...morals of that order of men. Yet he admits " that some of their compositions " (as translated to him) " savoured of sweet wit and good invention, but skilled...natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness to them, the which it is great pity to see so abused to the gracing of wickedness and vice." The acrimony...

...well-favoured, as poems should be ? Iren. Yea, truly. I have caused divers of them to be translated unto me, that I might understand them ; and surely they...device which gave good grace and comeliness unto them ; the which it is great pity to see so abused, to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which with good...

...Spenser (as Irenaeus) answers : " Yea, truely, I have caused •divers of them to be translated unto me, that I might understand them, and surely they...but skilled not of the goodly ornaments of poetry " (rather these were lost in a prose translation) ; " they were sprinkled with some pretty flowers...

...divers of them to be translated unto me, that I might understand them ; and surely they were favoured of sweet wit, and good invention, but skilled not...device, which gave good grace and comeliness unto them ; the which it is a great pity to see so abused, to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which with...

...severely, and perhaps truly, describes in his ' State of Ireland,' and whose poems, he tells us, ' were sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their natural...device which gave good grace and comeliness unto them.' " But, generally speaking, was not Spenser not only unjust but basely ungrateful to the people he lived...

...seems, was bought for forty crowns. However, Spenser allows that some of the poetry was " sprinkled with pretty flowers of their natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness to them, the which it is great pity to see abused to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which with...

...poems should be ? " " Yea, truly," says Spenser, " I have caused divers of them to be translated unto me, that I might understand them, and surely they savoured of sweet art and good invention, but skilled not in the goodly ornaments of poesie, yet were they sprinkled...

...allows, too, a qualified virtue in the native poetry. Of Irish compositions Spenser asserts that ' they savoured of sweet wit and good invention, but...were they sprinkled with some pretty flowers of their own natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness unto them.' Spenser also took an antiquarian...