What d’ye say of such men? Why you say they are prosing. So, of course, then, if _prose_ is so tedious a _crime_, It of consequence follows, there’s _virtue_ in _rhime_. The best piece of prose that I’ve heard a long while, Is what gallant Nelson has sent from THE NILE. And had he but told us the story in _rhime_, What a thing ’twou’d be; but, perhaps, he’d no time. So, I’ll do it myself—Oh! ’tis glorious news! Nine _sail_ of the line! Just a ship for each Muse. As I live, there’s an end of the French and their navy— Sir John Warren has sent the Brest fleet to Old Davy. ’Tis in the Gazette, and that, every one knows, Is sure to be truth, tho’ ’tis written in prose. * The lines between inverted commas are not spoken.