BULLER.
Why, all this is—
NORTH.
Stop. Read on, Talboys.
TALBOYS.
"A thoughtlessness and imprudence with respect to the future, and a general imprudence in the conduct of life, has been often laid to the charge of Poets. Horace represents them as too much engrossed and intoxicated with their favourite pursuits to think of anything else—
BULLER.
Leave out the quotation from old Flaccus—and go on.
TALBOYS.
"This carelessness about the goods of fortune is an infirmity very naturally resulting from their studies, and is only to be cured by years and experience; or by a combination—very rare, indeed—of poetical genius with a more than ordinary share of that homely endowment COMMON SENSE."