"But to do this always, and never be able to write a line without it, though it may be admired by some few pedants, will not pass upon those who know that _Wit is best conveyed to us in the most easy language: and is most to be admired, when a great thought comes dressed in words so commonly received, that it is understood by the meanest apprehensions; as the best meat is the most easily digested_. But we cannot read a verse of CLEVELAND's, without making a face at it; as if every word were a pill to swallow. He gives us, many times, a hard nut to break our teeth, without a kernel for our pains. So that there is this difference between his _Satires_ and Doctor DONNE's: that the one [_DONNE_] gives us deep thoughts in common language, though rough cadence; the other [_CLEVELAND_] gives us common thoughts in abtruse words. 'Tis true, in some places, his wit is independent of his words, as in that of the _Rebel Scot_-- "Had CAIN been Scot, GOD would have changed his doom, Not forced him wander, but confined him home. "_Si sic, omnia dixisset!_ This is Wit in all languages. 'Tis like MERCURY, never to be lost or killed. And so that other, "For beauty, like white powder, makes no noise, And yet the silent hypocrite destroys. "You see the last line is highly metaphorical; but it is so soft and gentle, that it does not shock us as we read it. "But to return from whence I have digressed, to the consideration of the Ancients' Writing and Wit; of which, by this time, you will grant us, in some measure, to be fit judges. "Though I see many excellent thoughts in SENECA: yet he, of them, who had a genius most proper for the Stage, was OVID. He [_i.e., OVID_] had a way of writing so fit to stir up a pleasing admiration and concernment, which are the objects of a Tragedy; and to show the various movements of a soul combating betwixt different passions: that, had he lived in our Age, or (in his own) could have writ with our advantages, no man but must have yielded to him; and therefore, I am confident the _MEDEA_ is none of his. For, though I esteem it, for the gravity and sentiousness of it (which he himself concludes to be suitable to a Tragedy, _Omne genus scripti gravitate Tragadia, vincit_); yet it moves not my soul enough, to judge that he, who, in the Epic way, wrote things so near the Drama (as the stories of _MYRRHA,_ of _CAUNUS and BIBLIS,_ and the rest) should stir up no more concernment, where he most endeavoured it. "The masterpiece of SENECA, I hold to be that Scene in the _Troades_, where _ULYSSES_ is seeking for _ASTYANAX,_ to kill him. There, you see the tenderness of a mother so represented in _ANDROMACHE_, that it raises compassion to a high degree in the reader; and bears the nearest resemblance, of anything in their Tragedies, to the excellent Scenes of Passion in SHAKESPEARE or in FLETCHER.