Poetic Diction.
——— worthiest poets
Shun common and plebeian forms of speech,
Every illiberal and affected phrase,
To clothe their matter; and together tye
Matter and form with art and decency.
Chapman.
41.
Author Vanity.
———the foolish Poet, that still writ
All his most self-loved verse in paper royal,
Or parchment ruled with lead, smooth’d with the pumice,
Bound richly up, and strung with crimson strings;
Never so blest as when he writ and read
The ape-loved issue of his brain; and never
But joying in himself, admiring ever—
Chapman.
42.
Good wit to be husbanded.
——— as of lions it is said, and eagles,
That when they go, they draw their seres and talons
Close up, to shun rebating of their sharpness:
So our wit’s sharpness, which we should employ
In noblest knowledge, we should never waste
In vile and vulgar admirations.