Epilogue to Suckling's Goblins:
Things that ne'er were, nor are, nor ne'er will be.—Isaac Reed.
[142] Horace, Ars Poet. 351:
Verum ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis
Offendar maculis.
[143] Lays for lays down, but, as Warton remarks, the word thus used is very objectionable.
[144] To the same effect Quintilian, lib. i. Ex quo mihi inter virtutes grammatici habebitur, aliqua nescire.—Wakefield.
[145] The incident is taken from the Second Part of Don Quixote, first written by Don Alonzo Fernandez de Avellanada, and afterwards translated, or rather imitated and new-modelled, by no less an Author than the celebrated Le Sage. "But, Sir, quoth the Bachelor, if you would have me adhere to Aristotle's rules, I must omit the combat. Aristotle, replied the Knight, I grant was a man of some parts; but his capacity was not unbounded; and, give me leave to tell you, his authority does not extend over combats in the list, which are far above his narrow rules. Believe me the combat will add such grace to your play, that all the rules in the universe must not stand in competition with it. Well, Sir Knight, replied the Bachelor, for your sake, and for the honour of chivalry, I will not leave out the combat. But still one difficulty remains, which is, that our common theatres are not large enough for it. There must be one erected on purpose, answered the Knight; and in a word, rather than leave out the combat, the play had better be acted in a field or plain."—Warton.
[146] In all editions till the quarto of 1743,
As e'er could D——s of the laws o' th' stage.
[147] In the manuscript the reply of the knight is continued through another couplet: