Audacious painters have Nine Worthies made;
But poet Decius,[68] more audacious farre,
Making his mistris march with men of warre,
With title of "Tenth Worthy"[69] doth her lade.[70]
Me thinks that gull did use his tearmes as fit,
Which tearm'd his loue "a gyant for her wit."
[Footnote 68: Drayton is here meant. [Malone's Manuscript-note in
Bodleian copy. G.]]
[Footnote 69: [Ben] Jonson told Drummond "That S[ir] J[ohn] Davies
played in ane Epigrame on Drayton's, who in a sonnet, concluded his
Mistress might [have] been the Ninth [Tenth] Worthy; and said, he
used a phrase like Dametas in [Sir Philip Sidney's] Arcadia, who
said For wit his Mistresse might be a gyant." 'Notes of Ben Jonson's
conversations with William Drummond, of Hawthornden,' p. 15 (Shakespere
Society). The sonnet by Drayton, which our author here ridicules, is as
follows:
"TO THE CELESTIALL NUMBERS.
"Vnto the World, to Learning, and to Heauen,
Three Nines there are, to euery one a Nine,
One Number of the Earth, the other both Diuine;
One Woman now makes three odde numbers euen:
Nine Orders first of Angels be in Heauen,
Nine Muses doe with Learning still frequent,
These with the Gods are euer Resident;
Nine Worthy Ones vnto the World were giuen:
My Worthy One to these Nine Worthies addeth,
And my faire Muse one Muse vnto the Nine,
And my good Angell (in my soule Diuine)
With one more Order these Nine Orders gladdeth:
My Muse, my Worthy, and my Angell, then,
Makes euery one of these three Nines a Ten."]
[Footnote 70: Isham reads badly 'woorthly.' 'Laide.' G. _Idea_: Sonnet
18 ed. 8vo. n. d. D.]