We know you have, not without passionate resentments, beheld the prostitution of his name in some late editions vended under it, wherein his orations are murthered over and over in barbarous Latin, and a more barbarous translation: and wherein is scarce one or other poem of his own to commute for all the rest. At least every Cuirassier of his hath a fulsome dragooner behind him, and Venus is again unequally yoked with a sooty anvil-beater. Cleveland thus revived dieth another death.
You cannot but have beheld with like zealous indignation how enviously our late mushroom-wits look up at him because he overdroppeth them, and snarl at his brightness as dogs at the Moon.
Some of these grand Sophys will not allow him the reputation of wit at all: yet how many such authors must be creamed and spirited to make up his Fuscara?[2] And how many of their slight productions may be gigged[3] out of one of his pregnant words? There perhaps you may find some leaf-gold, here massy wedges; there some scattered rays, here a galaxy; there some loose fancy frisking in the air, here Wit's Zodiac.
The quarrel in all this is upbraiding merit, and eminence his crime. His towering[4] fancy scareth so high a pitch that they fly like shades below him. The torrent thereof (which riseth far above their high water mark) drowneth their levels. Usurping upon the State Poetic of the time, he hath brought in such insolent measures of Wit and Language that, despairing to imitate, they must study to understand. That alone is Wit with them to which they are commensurate, and what exceedeth their scantling[5] is monstrous.
Thus they deifie[6] his Wit and Fancy as the clown the plump oyster when he could not crack it. And now instead of that strenuous masculine style which breatheth in this author, we have only an enervous effeminate froth offered, as if they had taken the salivating pill before they set pen to paper. You must hold your breath in the perusal lest the jest vanish by blowing on.
Another blemish in this monster of perfection is the exuberance of his fancy. His manna lieth so thick upon the ground they loathe it. When he should only fan, he with hurricanos of wit stormeth the sense, and doth not so much delight his reader, as oppress and overwhelm him.
To cure this excess, their frugal wit hath reduced the world to a Lessian Diet.[7] If perhaps they entertain their reader with one good thought (as these new Dictators affect to speak) he may sit down and say Grace over it: the rest is words and nothing else.
We will leave them therefore to the most proper vengeance, to humour themselves with the perusal of their own poems: and leave the barber to rub their thick skulls with bran[8] until they are fit for musk. Only we will leave this friendly advice with them; that they have one eye upon John Tradescant's executor,[9] lest among his other Minims of Art and Nature he expose their slight conceits: and another upon the Royal Society, lest they make their poems the counterbalance when they intend to weigh air.
From these unequal censures we appeal to such competent judges as yourselves, in whose just value of him Cleveland shall live the wonder of his own, and the pattern of succeeding ages. And although we might (upon several accompts) bespeak your affections, yet (abstracting from these) we submit him to your severer judgements, and doubt not but he will find that patronage from you which is desired and expected by
Your humble Servants.