Athens. Capuchin Convent, March 12th, 1811.

WHO would not laugh, if Lawrence, hired to grace His costly canvass with each flatter'd face, Abused his art, till Nature, with a blush, Saw cits grow centaurs underneath his brush?

Or, should some limner join, for show or sale,

A maid of honour to a mermaid's tail?

Dr low* Dubost (as once the world has seen)
Degrade God's creatures in his graphic spleen?

Not all that forced politeness, which defends

Fools in their faults, could gag his grinning friends.
Believe me, Moschus, like that picture seems

The book which, sillier than a sick man's dreams,
Displays a crowd of figures incomplete,
Poetic nightmares, witnout head or feet.

Poets and painters, as all artists know,
May shoot a little with a lengthen'd bow;
We claim this mutual mercy for our task,
And grant in turn the pardon which we ask;
But make not monsters spring from gentle dams-
Birds breed not vipers, tigers nurse not lambs.

A labour'd, long exordium, sometimes tends
(Like patriot speeches) but to paltry ends;
And nonsense in a lofty note goes down,
As periness passes with a legal gown:
Thus many a bard describes in pompous strain
The clear brook babbling through the goodly plain;
The groves of Granta, and her gothic halls,

King's Coll., Cam's stream, stain'd windows, and old walls:

Or, in advent'rous numbers, neatly aims
To paint a rainbow, or the river Thames.†

Jumano capiti cervicem pictor equinam
Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas,
Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum
Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne;
Spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici?
Credite, Pisones, iste tabula fore librum
Persimilem, cujus, velut ægri somnia, vane
Fingentur species, ut nec pes, nec caput uni
Reddatur forme. Pictoribus atque poctis
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit qua potestas
Scimus, et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim:
Sed non ut placidis coëant immitia; non ut
Serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni.

Inceptis gravibus plerumque et magna professi
Purpureus, Jate qui splendeat, unus et alter
Assuitur pannus; cum lucus et ara Diane,
Et properantis aquæ per amenos ambitus agros,
Aut flumen Rhenum, aut pluvius describitur arcus.

In an English newspaper, which finds its way abroad wherever there are Englishmen, I read an account of this dirty dauber's caricature of Mr. H, and the consequent action, &c. The circumstance is probably too well known to require further comment.

"Where pure description held the place of sense."-Pɔpe.

You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may shine→→→ But daub a shipwreck like an alehouse sign; You plan a vase-it dwindles to a pot; Then glide down Grub-street-fasting and forgo Laugh'd into Lethe by some quaint review, Whose wit is never troublesome till true.

In fine, to whatsoever you aspire, Let it at least be simple and entire.

The greater portion of the rhyming tribe (Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe, Are led astray by some peculiar lure.

I labour to be brief-become obscure;

One falls while following elegance too fast;
Another soars, inflated with bombast;
Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly,
He spins his subject to satiety;
Absurdly varying, he at last engraves

Fish in the woods, and boars beneath the waves

Unless your care's exact, your judgment nice,
The flight from folly leads but into vice;
None are complete, all wanting in some part,
Like certain tailors, limited in art.
For galligaskins Slowshears is your man,
But coats must claim another artizan.*
Now this to me, I own, seems much the same
As Vulcan's feet to bear Apollo's frame;
Or, with a fair complexion, to expose
Black eyes, black ringlets, but-a bottle nose!

Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;

Sed nunc non erat his locus: et fortasse cupressum
Scis simulare: quid hoc. si fractis enatat exspes
Navibus, ære dato qui pingitur? amphora cœpit
Institui: currente rotâ cur urccus exit?
Denique sit quod vis, simplex duntaxat et unum.
Maxima pars vatum, pater, et juvenes patre digni
Decipimur specie recti. Brevis esse laboro,
Obscurus fio: sectantem levia, nervi
Deficiunt animique: professus grandia, turget:
Serpit humi, tutus nimium, timidusque procellæ :
Qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam,
Delphinum sylvis appingit fluctibus aprum.

In vitium ducit culpe fuga, si caret arte.
Æmilium circa ludum faber unus et ungues
Exprimet, et molles imitabitur ære capillos;
Infelix operis summa, quia ponere totum
Nesciet. Hunc ego me, si quid componere curem
Non magis esse velim, quam pravo vivere naso,
Spectandum nigris oculis nigroque capillo.

Mere common mortals were commonly content with one tailor and with one bill, but the more particular gentlemen found it impossible to confide their lower garments to the makers of their body clothes. I speak of the beginning of 1909 what reform may have since taken place I neither know nor desire to know.

Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.
But lucid Order, and Wit's siren voice,
Await the poet, skilful in his cnoice;
With native eloquence he soars along,
Grace in his thoughts, and music in his song.

Let judgment teach him wisely to combine
With future parts the now omitted line;
This shall the author choose, or that reject,
Precise in style, and cautious to select.
Nor slight applause will candid pens afford
To him who furnishes a wanting word.
Then fear not if 'tis needful to produce
Some term unknown, or obsolete in use,
(As *Pitt has furnish'd us a word or two,
Which lexicographers declined to do ;)
So you indeed, with care,-(but be content
To take this licence rarely)-may invent.
New words find credit in these latter days,
If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase.
What Chaucer, Spenser did, we scarce refuse
To Dryden's or to Pope's maturer muse.
If you can add a little, say why not,

As well as William Pitt and Walter Scott?
Since they, by force of rhyme and force of lungs,
Enrich'd our island's ill-united tongues;
"Tis then-and shall be-lawful to present
Reform in writing, as in parliament.

As forests shed their foliage by degrees,
So fade expressions which in season please.
And we and ours, alas! are due to fate,

And works and words but dwindle to a date.

Though as a monarch nods, and commerce calls,

Impetuous rivers stagnate in canals;

As custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway
Our life and language must alike obey.

The immortal wars which gods and angels wage,
Are they not shown in Milton's sacred page?
His strain will teach what numbers best belong
To themes celestial told in epic song.

The slow, sad stanza will correctly paint The lover's anguish or the friend's complaint. But which deserves the laurel, rhyme or blank? Which holds on Helicon the higher rank? Let squabbling critics by themselves dispute This point, as puzzling as a Chancery suit.

Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen. You doubt-see Dryden, Pope, St. Patrick's dean.*

Blank verse is now, with one consent, allied To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side. Though mad Almanzor rhymed in Dryden's days, No sing-song hero rants in modern plays; While modest Comedy her verse foregoes For jest and punt in very middling prose.

Not that our Bens or Beaumonts show the worse, Or lose one point, because they wrote in verse. But so Thalia pleases to appear,

Poor virgin! dainn'd some twenty times a year!

Whate'er the scene, let this advice have weight. Adapt your language to your hero's state.

At times Melpomene forgets to groan,
And brisk Thalia takes a serious tone;

Nor unregarded will the act pass by

Where angry Townly lifts his voice on high.
Again, our Shakspeare limits verse to kings,

The heavy ploughshare and the yellow grain,

And rising ports along the busy shore

Protect the vessel from old ocean's roar,

All, all must perish; but, surviving last,
The love of letters half preserves the past.
True, some decay, yet not a few revive t
Though those shall sink, which now appear to thrive,

Sumite materiem vestris, qui scribitis, equam
Viribus; et versate diu quid ferre recusent
Quid valeant humeri. Cui lecta potentererit res,
Nec facundia deseret hunc nec lucidus ordo.

Ordinis hæc virtus erit et venus, aut ego fallor,
Ut jam nune dicat, jam nunc debentia dici
Pleraque differat, et præsens in tempus omittat;
Hoc amet, hoc spernat promissi carminis auctor.
In verbis etiam tenuis cautesque serendis :
Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum
Reddiderit junctura novum. Si forte necesse est
Indicis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,
Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis
Continget; dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter;
Et nova factaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si
Græco fonte cadant. parce detorta. Quid autem
Cæcilio Plautoque dabit Romanus, ademptum
Virgilio Varioque? ego cur, acquirere pauca
Si possum, invideor; cum lingua Catonis et Enni
Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum
Nomina protulerit? Licuit, semperque licebit,
Signatum præsente nota producere nomen.

Et silve foliis pronos mutantur in annos;
Prima cadunt: ita verborum vetus interit ætas,
Et juvenum ritu florent modo nata, vigentque.
Debemur morti nos nostraque: sive receptus
Terra Neptunus classes aquilonibus arcet,
Regis opus; sterilisve diu palus, aptaque remis
Vicinas urbes alit, et grave sentit aratrum:
Seu cursum mutavit iniquum frugibus amnis,
Doctus iter melius; mortalia facta peribunt:
Nedum sermonum stet honos, et gratia vivax.
Multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidere; cadentque,

• Mr. Pitt was liberal in his additions to our parliamentary tongue, as may be seen in many publications, particularly the Edinburgh Review.

Old ballads, old plays, and cd women's stories, are at present in as much request as old wine or new speeches. In fact this is the millennium black letter: thanks to our Hebers. Webers, and Scotts!

And lively Hal resigns heroic ire,

To "hollowing Hotspur" and the sceptred sire.

"T is not enough, ye bards, with all your art,
To polish poems; they must touch the heart:
Where'er the scene be laid. whate'er the song,
Still let it bear the hearer's soul along;

Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,
Quem penes arbitrium est, et jus, et norma loquend
Res gestæ regumque ducumque et tristia bella,
Quo scribi possent numero monstravit Homerus.
Versibus impariter junctis querimonia primum,
Post etiam inclusa est veti sententia compos.
Quis tamen exiguos elegos emiserit auctor,
Grammatici certant. et adhuc sub judice lis est.
Archilocum proprio rabies armavit iambo;
Hunc socci cepere pedem grandesque cothurni,
Alternis aptum sermonibus, et populares
Vincentem strepitus, et natum rebus agendis.
Musa dedit fidibus divos, puerosque deorum
Et pugilem victorem, et equum certamine primum,
Et juvenum curas et libera vina referre.

Descriptas servare vices operumque colores,
Cur ego, si nequeo ignoroque. poeta salutor?
Cur nescire pudens prave, quam discere malo?
Versibus exponi tragicis res comica non vult
Indignatur item privatis, ac prope socco
Dignis carminibus narrari cœna Thyesta.
Singula quæque locum teneant sortita decenter.
Interdum tamen et vocem comedia tollit,
Iratusque Chremes tumido delitigat ore:
Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri.
Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exul, uterque
Projicit ampullas, et sesquipedalia verba;
Si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querela.

Non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto,
Et quocunque volent, animum auditoris agunto.

Mac Flecknoe, the Dunciad, and all Swift's lampooning ballads. Whatever their other works may be, these originated in personal feeling, and angry retort on unworthy rivals; and though the ability of these sa tires elevates the poetical, their poignancy detracts from the personai character of the writers.

With all the vulgar applause and critical abhorrence of puns, they have Aristotle on their side, who permits them to craters, and gives them consequence by a grave disquisition.

"And in his ear I'll hollow, Mortimer !''- Henry IV.

While varying man and varying years unfold
Life's little tale so oft, so vainly told.

Observe his simple childhood's dawning days,
His pranks, his prate, his playmates, and his plays;
Till time at length the mannish tyro weans,
And prurient vice outstrips his tardy teens!

Behold him freshman! forced no more to groan
O'er Virgil's devilish verses and his own,
Prayers are too tedious, lectures too abstruse,
He flies from T-v-l's frown to " Fordham's Mews;"
(Unlucky T-v-l! doom'd to daily cares
By pugilistic pupils and by bearst,)
Fines, tutors, tasks, conventions threat in vain,
Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket plain.
Rough with his elders, with his equals rash,
Civil to sharpers, prodigal of cash;
Constant to nought-save hazard and a whore,
Yet cursing both-for both have made him sore;
Unread (unless, since books beguile disease,
The p-x becomes his passage to degrees);
Fool'd, pillaged, dunn'd, he wastes his term away
And, unexpell'd perhaps, retires M. A.;
Master of arts! as hells and clubs* proclaim,
Where scarce a blackleg bears a brighter name!

Launch'd into life, extinct his early fire, He apes the selfish prudence of his sire; Marries for money, chooses friends for rank, Buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to the Bank; Sits in the senate; gets a son and heir; Sends him to Harrow, for himself was there. Mute, though he votes, unless when call'd to cheer. His son's so sharp-he'll see the dog a beer!

Manhood acclines-age palsies every limb;
He quits the scene-or else the scene quits him;
Scrapes wealth, o'er each departing penny grieves,
And avarice seizes all ambition leaves;

Counts cent. per cent., and smiles, or vainly frets,
O'er hoards diminish'd by young Hopeful's debts;
Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy,
Complete in all life's lessons--but to die;
Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please,
Commending every time, save times like these;
Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot,
Expires unwept-is buried-let him rot!

But from the drama let me not digress,
Nor spare my precepts, though they please you less.

Si plausoris eges aulæa manentis, et usque
Seisuri, donec cantor, Vos plaudite, dicat;
Atatis cujusque notandi sunt tibi mores,
Mobilibusque decor naturis dandus et annis.
Reddere qui voces jam scit puer, et pede certo
Signat humum; gestit paribus colludere, et iram
Colligit ac ponit temere, et mutatur in horas.

Imberbis juvenis, tandem custode remoto,
Gaudet equis canibusque, et aprici gramine campi;
Cereus in vitium fleeti, monitoribus asper,
Utilium tardus provisor, prodigus æris,
Sublimis, cupidusque, et amata relinquere pernix.
Conversis studiis, retas animusque virilis
Querit opes, et amicitias, inservit honori;
Commisisse cavet quod mox mutare laboret.

Multa senem conveniunt incominoda; vel quod

• Harvey, the circulator of the circulat on of the blood, used to fling away Virgil in his ecstacy of a boiration, and say, "the book had a devil." Now, such a character as I ara conving would probably fling it away also, but rather wish that the devil had the book; not from any dislike to the poet, but a well-founded korren of hexame.cx. Indeed the public school penance of long and short" is enough to beget an antipathy to poetry for the residue of a man's life, and, perhaps, so far may be an advantage. Infandum, regina, Jubes renovare dolorem,” I dare say Mr. T-- (to whom I mean no afront) will understand me; and it is no matter whether any one else des or no,-To the shove events, " quæque fpse miserrima vidi, et quorum pars magna fui,” all times and ternis bear testimony.

"Hell," a gaming-house so called, where you risk little, and are cheated a good deal. Club, avent purgatory, where you lose more, and are not supposer to be cheated at all

Though women weep, and hardest hearts are stirrů,
When what is done is rather seen than heard,
Yet many deeds preserved in history's page
Are better told than acted on the stage;
The car sustains what shocks the timid eye,
And horror thus subsides to sympathy.
True Briton all beside, I here am French-
Bloodshed 't is surely better to retrench;
The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow
In tragic scene disgusts, though but in show,
We hate the carnage while we see the trick,
And find small sympathy in being sick.
Not on the stage the regicide Macbeth
Appals an audience with a monarch s death,
To gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear
Young Arthur's eyes, can ours, or nature bear?
A *halter'd heroine Johnson sought to slay-
We saved Irene, but half damn'd the play.
And (Heaven be praised!) our tolerating times
Stint metamorphoses to pantomimes,
And Lewis' self, with all his sprites, would quake
To change Earl Osmond's negro to a snake!
Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief,
We loathe the action which exceeds belief:
And yet, God knows! what may not authors do,
Whose postcripts prate of dyeing "heroines blue ?**

Above all things, Dan Poet, if you can,
Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal man,
Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed scrape
Must open ten trap-doors for your escape.
Of all the monstrous things I'd fain forbid,
I loathe an opera worse than Dennis did;
Where good and evil persons, right or wrong,
Rage, love, and aught but moralize, in song.
Hail, last memorial of our foreign friends
Which Gaul allows, and still Hesperia lends!
Napoleon's edicts no embargo lay

On whores, spies, singers, wisely shipp'd away.
Our giant capital, whose squares are spread
Where rustics carn'd, and now may beg, their bread
In all, iniquity is grown so nice,

It scorns amusements which are not of price.
Hence the pert shopkeeper, whore throbbing ear
Aches with orchestras which he pays to hear,
Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore,
His anguish doubling by his own "encore ;"
Squeezed in " Fop's Alley," jostled by the beaux,
Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes;

Quærit, et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet uti;
Vel quod res omnes timide goli leque ministrat,
Dilator, spe longus, iners, avidusque futuri;
Difficilis, quærulus, laudator temporis acti
Se puero, castigator censorque minorum.
Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum,
Multa recedentes adimunt. Ne forte seniles
Mandentur juveni partes, pueroque viriles,
Semper in adjunctis, ævoque morabimur aptls.
Aut agitur res in scenis, aut acta refertur.
Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem
Quam quæ sunt eculis subiecta fidelibus, et quæ
Ipse sibi tradit spectator. Non tamen intus
Digna geri, promes in scenam; multaque tolles
Ex oculis, qua: mox narret facundia præsens.
Ne pueros coram popio Medea trucidet;
Aur humana palam coquat exti pefarius Atreus,
Aut in avem Progne vertatur. Ca/mus in anzuem
Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus edi.
Neve minor, neu sit quinto productior actu
Fabula, que posci vult, et spectata reponi.
Nec Deus inter-it, nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit.

"Irene had to wreak two lines with the bowstong round her neck but the audience cried out Murder !' and she was obliged to be carried. the stage."-Bossed's Life of Jaku in.

In the posteript to the "Castle Spectre Mr. Lewis telle es, tha though blacks were unknown in England at the period of ris action, vet ha has made the anach uism to set off the scene, and if he could have pro duced the cty making his borine blue"--! quote him-“blue ha

wod. I have made her!"

Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease
Till the dropp'd curtain gives a glad release;
Why this, and more, he suffers-can ye guess?-
Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress!

So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools Give us but fiddlers, and they 're sure of fools! Ere scenes were play'd by many a reverend clerk* (What harm, if David danced before the ark?) In Christmas revels, simple country folks Were pleas'd with morrice-mumm'ry and coarse jokes. Improving years, with things no longer known, Produced blithe Punch and merry Madame Joan, Who still frisk on with feats so lewdly low, 'Tis strange Benvolio suffers such a show;† Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place, Oaths, boxing, begging,-all, save rout and race.

Farce follow'd Comedy, and reach'd her prime In ever-laughing Foote's fantastic time; Mad wag! who pardon'd none, nor spared the best And turn'd some very serious things to jest. Nor church nor state escaped his public sneers, Arms nor the gown, priests, lawyers, volunteers: "Alas, poor Yorick !" now for ever mute! Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote.

We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes Ape the swoln dialogue of kings and queens, When "Chrononhotonthologos must die," And Arthur struts in mimic majesty.

Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit And smile at fully, if we can't at wit; Yes, friend! for thee I'll quit my cynic cell, And bear Swift's motto "Vive la bagatelle !" Which charm'd our days in each gean clime, As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme. Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the past, Soothe thy life's scene's, nor leave thee in the last; But find in thine, like pagan Plato's bed, Some merry manuscript of mimes, when dead.

Now to the Drama let us bend our eyes,
Where fetter'd by whig Walpole low she lies;
Corruption foil'd her, for she fear'd her glance;
Decorum left her for an opera dance!

Yet Chesterfield, whose polish'd pen inveighs
'Gainst laughter, fought for freedom to our plays;
Uncheck'd by megrims of patrician brains,
And damning dulness of lord chamberlains.
Repeal that act! again let Humour roam
Wild o'er the stage-we've time for tears at home;
Let "Archer" plant the horns on "Sullen's" brows,
And "Estifania" gull her "Copper" spouse;

Ex noto fictum carmen sequar, ut sibi quivis
Speret i 'em: suder multum, frustraque laboret
Ausus idem: tantum series juncturaque pollet;
Tantum de meio an utis acce it honors.

Silvis deducti caveant, me judice, Fauni, Ne velut inn i triviis, ae pene forenses, Aut nimium teneris juveaeatur versibus unquam, Aut im nun a crepeat, ignominiosa que dicta. Offendustar era, mbus est e juus, et pater, et res: Nee si quid frie’i ciceris probat et nucis empor,

• The steatrical representations, cutitel Mysteries and MoralItten,' were generally yna tiska Chaistmas, by monks (as the culy persons who can't work, and atterly be the clergy and students of the universities. The drainatis perkins were usually Adam, Pater Celestis, Faith, View, &e, Ac.-Vidk Werton's History of English Poetry, ↑ Benvolio does not het; but every man who maintain's race-horses is n promoter of as the commenm 'ant evils of the turf. Avoiding to bet is a little pharissial. Is it an exealpation? I think not. I never yet heard & bawd praise for chastity cause she herself did not commit fornication. Under Plato's pillow a vulmone of the M. nes of Sophron was found Le day he died.-Vide Bartlteni, De Pano, or Diogenes Laertiur, f agreeable. De Pauw calls it a jest book.-Cum erland, in his Observer, it moral, like the savings of Publius Syrus,"

4 His speech on the licensing act is one of his most eloquent efforts. Michael Ferez, the Copper Captain," in "Rule a Wife and have a W.le."

The morals scant-but that may be excused,
Men go not to be lectured, but amused.
He whom our plays dispose to good or ill
Must wear a head in want of Willis' skill;
Ay, but Macheath's example-psha!-no more!
It form'd no thieves--the thief was form'd before
And spite of puritans and Collier's curse,'
Plays make mankind no better, and no worse.
Then spare our stage, ye methodistic men!
Nor burn damn'd Drury if it rise again.
But why to brain-scorch'd bigots thus appea:
Can heavenly mercy dwell with earthly zeal?
For times of fire and faggot let them hope,
Times dear alike to puritan or pope.
As pious Calvin saw Servetus blaze,
So would new sects on newer victims gaze.
E'en now the songs of Solyma begin;
Faith cants, perplex'd apologist of sin!
While the Lord's servant chastens whom he loves,
And Simeon kicks where †Baxter only "shoves."

Whom nature guides, so writes, that every dunce Enraptured, thinks to do the same at once; But after inky thumbs and bitten nails, And twenty scatter'd quires, the coxcomb fails.

Let pastoral be dumb; for who can hope To match the youthful eclogues of our Pope? Yet his and Phillips' faults, of different kind, For art too rude, for nature too refined, Instruct how hard the medium 't is to hit 'Twixt too much polish and too coarse a wit.

A vulgar scribbler, certes, stands disgraced In this nice age, when all aspire to taste; The dirty language, and the noisome jest, Which pleased in Swift of yore, we now detest, Proscribed not only in the world polite,

But even too nasty for a city knight!

Peace to Swift's faults! his wit hath made them pass
Unmatch'd by all, save matchless Hudibras!
Whose author is perhaps the first we meet,
Who from our couplet lopp'd two final feet;
Nor less in merit than the longer line,
This measure moves a favourite of the Nine.
Though at first view eight feet may seem in vain
Form'd, save in ode, to bear a serious strain,
Yet Scott has shown our wondering isle of late
This measure shrinks not from a theme of weight,
And, varied skilfully, surpasses far

Heroic rhyme, but most in love and war,
Whose fluctuations, tender or sublime,
Are curb'd too much by long-recurring rhyme.

Equis accipiunt animis, donantve corona.

Syllaba longa brevi subjecta, vocatur iambus, Pes citus: unde etiam trimetris accrescere jussit Nomen iambeis, cum senos realderet ictus, Primus ad extremum similis sibi: non ita pridem. Tardior ut paulo graviorque veniret ad aures, Spondeos stabiles in jura paterna recepit Commodus et patiens; non ut de sede secundâ Cederet aut quarta socialiter Hic et in Acci Nobilibus trimettis appar t rarus, et Enni. In scenam missos magno cum pondere versus, Aut opere celeris nimim, curaque carentis, Aut ignorate premit artis crimine turpi.

Non quivis vilet immodulata poemata judex. Et data Romanis venia est indigna poetis. Idcircone vager, scribamque licenter? an omne