Horace (to himself): To think this day should have dawned so black for me!
[Suddenly enter the Plaintiff in the suit against the Bore.
Plaintiff (loudly to the Bore): Where are you off to, you scoundrel? (To HORACE) May I call you as a witness to his contempt of court?
[Horace lets his ear be touched, according to legal form. The Bore is hauled away to court, he and the Plaintiff bawling at each other. The arrest attracts a large crowd.
Horace (quietly disappearing): What an escape! Thank Apollo!
[The Art of Poetry]
UNITY AND SIMPLICITY ARE REQUISITE
Suppose a painter to a human head
Should join a horse's neck, and wildly spread
The various plumage of the feather'd kind
O'er limbs of different beasts, absurdly joined.
Or if he gave to view of beauteous maid
Above the waist with every charm arrayed,
But ending, fish-like, in a mermaid tail,
Could you to laugh at such a picture fail?
Such is the book that, like a sick man's dreams,
Varies all shapes, and mixes all extremes.
"Painters and poets our indulgence claim,
Their daring equal, and their art the same."
I own the indulgence, such I give and take;
But not through nature's sacred rules to break.
Your opening promises some grand design,
And purple patches with broad lustre shine
Sewed on the poem; here in laboured strain
A sacred grove, or fair Diana's fane
Rises to view; there through delightful meads
A murmuring stream its winding water leads.
Why will you thus a mighty vase intend,
If in a worthless bowl your labours end?
Then learn this wandering humour to control,
And keep one equal tenour through the whole.