TRI. I maintain that a better one cannot be made, and my reason is that I am the author of it.
VAD. You?
TRI. Myself.
VAD. I cannot understand how the thing can have happened.
TRI. It is unfortunate that I had not the power of pleasing you.
VAD. My mind must have wandered during the reading, or else the reader spoilt the sonnet; but let us leave that subject, and come to my ballad.
TRI. The ballad is, to my mind, but an insipid thing; it is no longer the fashion, and savours of ancient times.
VAD. Yet a ballad has charms for many people.
TRI. It does not prevent me from thinking it unpleasant.
VAD. That does not make it worse.