George Gascoigne, A primer of English poetry (1575)

Abstract The first and most necessary point that ever I found meet to be considered in making of a delectable poem is this, to ground it upon some fine invention.1 For it is not enough to roll in pleasant words, nor yet to thunder in ‘ Rym, Ram, Ruff’ by letter (quoth my master Chaucer),2 nor yet to abound in apt vocables or epithets, unless the invention have If I should undertake to write in praise of a gentlewoman, I would neither praise her crystal eye, nor her cherry lip, etc. For these things are trita et obvia. But I would either find some supernatural cause whereby my pen might walk in the superlative degree, or else I would undertake to answer for any imperfection that she hath, and there­upon raise the praise of her commendation. Likewise, if I should dis­close my pretence in love, I would either make a strange discourse of some intolerable passion, or find occasion to plead by the example of some history, or discover my disquiet in shadows per allegoriam, or use the covertest mean that I could to avoid the uncomely customs of common writers.