Lovel. I marvel why the poets, who, of all men, methinks, should possess the hottest livers, and most empyreal fancies, should affect to see such virtues in cold water.
Gray. Virtue in cold water! ha! ha! ha!
John. Because your poet-born hath an internal wine, richer than lippara or canaries, yet uncrushed from any grapes of earth, unpressed in mortal wine-presses.
3rd Gent. What may be the name of this wine?
John. It hath as many names as qualities. It is denominated indifferently, wit, conceit, invention, inspiration, but its most royal and comprehensive name is fancy.
3rd Gent. And where keeps he this sovereign liquor?
John. Its cellars are in the brain, whence your true poet deriveth intoxication at will; while his animal spirits, catching a pride from the quality and neighborhood of their noble relative, the brain, refuse to be sustained by wines and fermentations of earth.
3rd Gent. But is your poet-born always tipsy with this liquor?
John. He hath his stoopings and reposes; but his proper element is the sky, and in the suburbs of the empyrean.
3rd Gent. Is your wine-intellectual so exquisite? henceforth, I, a man of plain conceit, will, in all humility, content my mind with canaries.