Others for language all their care express, And value books, as women men, for dress: Their praise is still--'The style is excellent;' The sense, they humbly take upon content. Words are like leaves, and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. 310 False eloquence, like the prismatic glass, Its gaudy colours spreads on every place; The face of Nature we no more survey, All glares alike, without distinction gay; But true expression, like the unchanging sun, Clears, and improves whate'er it shines upon; It gilds all objects, but it alters none. Expression is the dress of thought, and still Appears more decent, as more suitable; A vile conceit in pompous words express'd, 320 Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd: For different styles with different subjects sort, As several garbs with country, town, and court. Some by old words to fame have made pretence, Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense; Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze the unlearn'd, and make the learnèd smile. Unlucky, as Fungoso[15] in the play, These sparks with awkward vanity display What the fine gentleman wore yesterday; 330 And but so mimic ancient wits at best, As apes our grandsires, in their doublets dress'd. In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. But most by numbers judge a poet's song; And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong: In the bright Muse, though thousand charms conspire, Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire; 340 Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear, Not mend their minds; as some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire; While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line: While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, With sure returns of still expected rhymes; Where'er you find 'the cooling western breeze,' 350 In the next line, it 'whispers through the trees:' If crystal streams 'with pleasing murmurs creep,' The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with 'sleep:' Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow; And praise the easy vigour of a line, 360 Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must seem an echo to the sense; Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows: But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,