At any risk ere, trim to pattern clipped, They matched rare specimens the Mantuan flock Regaled him with, each talker from his stock Of sorted-o'er opinions, every stage, Juicy in youth or desiccate with age, Fruits like the fig-tree's, rathe-ripe, rotten-rich, Sweet-sour, all tastes to take: a practice which He too had not impossibly attained, Once either of those fancy-flights restrained; (For, at conjecture how might words appear To others, playing there what happened here, And occupied abroad by what he spurned At home, 't was slipped, the occasion he returned To seize:) he 'd strike that lyre adroitly--speech, Would but a twenty-cubit plectre reach; A clever hand, consummate instrument, Were both brought close; each excellency went For nothing, else. The question Naddo asked, Had just a lifetime moderately tasked To answer, Naddo's fashion. More disgust [Sidenote: Of whom he is also too contemptuous.] And more: why move his soul, since move it must At minute's notice or as good it failed To move at all? The end was, he retailed Some ready-made opinion, put to use This quip, that maxim, ventured reproduce Gestures and tones--at any folly caught Serving to finish with, nor too much sought If false or true 't was spoken; praise and blame Of what he said grew pretty nigh the same --Meantime awards to meantime acts: his soul, Unequal to the compassing a whole, Saw, in a tenth part, less and less to strive About. And as for men in turn ... contrive Who could to take eternal interest In them, so hate the worst, so love the best! Though, in pursuance of his passive plan, He hailed, decried, the proper way. As Man So figured he; and how as Poet? Verse Came only not to a stand-still. The worse, That his poor piece of daily work to do Was, not sink under any rivals; who [Sidenote: He pleases neither himself nor them:] Loudly and long enough, without these qualms, Turned, from Bocafoli's stark-naked psalms, To Plara's sonnets spoilt by toying with, "As knops that stud some almug to the pith Prickèd for gum, wry thence, and crinklèd worse Than pursèd eyelids of a river-horse Sunning himself o' the slime when whirrs the breeze"-- _Gad-fly_, that is. He might compete with these! But--but-- "Observe a pompion-twine afloat; Pluck me one cup from off the castle-moat! [Sidenote: Which the best judges account for.] Along with cup you raise leaf, stalk and root, The entire surface of the pool to boot. So could I pluck a cup, put in one song A single sight, did not my hand, too strong, Twitch in the least the root-strings of the whole. How should externals satisfy my soul?" "Why that 's precise the error Squarcialupe"