Hourly we see some raw pin-feathered thing Attempt to mount, and fights and heroes sing; Who for false quantities was whipt at school But t'other day, and breaking grammar-rule; Whose trivial art was never tried above The bare description of a native grove; Who knows not how to praise the country store, } The feasts, the baskets, nor the fatted boar, } Nor paint the flowery fields that paint themselves before; } Where Romulus was bred, and Quintius born,[184] Whose shining plough-share was in furrows worn, Met by his trembling wife returning home, And rustically joyed, as chief of Rome: She wiped the sweat from the Dictator's brow, } And o'er his back his robe did rudely throw; } The lictors bore in state their lord's triumphant plough. } Some love to hear the fustian poet roar, And some on antiquated authors pore; Rummage for sense, and think those only good Who labour most, and least are understood. When thou shalt see the blear-eyed fathers teach Their sons this harsh and mouldy sort of speech, Or others new affected ways to try, Of wanton smoothness, female poetry; One would enquire from whence this motley style Did first our Roman purity defile. For our old dotards cannot keep their seat, But leap and catch at all that's obsolete. Others, by foolish ostentation led, When called before the bar, to save their head, Bring trifling tropes, instead of solid sense, And mind their figures more than their defence; Are pleased to hear their thick-skulled judges cry, Well moved, oh finely said, and decently! Theft (says the accuser) to thy charge I lay, O Pedius: what does gentle Pedius say? Studious to please the genius of the times, With periods, points, and tropes,[185] he slurs his crimes: "He robbed not, but he borrowed from the poor, And took but with intention to restore." He lards with flourishes his long harangue; 'Tis fine, say'st thou;--what, to be praised, and hang? Effeminate Roman, shall such stuff prevail To tickle thee, and make thee wag thy tail? Say, should a shipwrecked sailor sing his woe, Wouldst thou be moved to pity, or bestow An alms? What's more preposterous than to see A merry beggar? Mirth in misery? PERSIUS. He seems a trap for charity to lay, And cons, by night, his lesson for the day. FRIEND. But to raw numbers, and unfinished verse, Sweet sound is added now, to make it terse: "'Tis tagged with rhyme, like Berecynthian Atys, The mid-part chimes with art, which never flat is.[186] The dolphin brave, that cuts the liquid wave, Or he who in his line can chine the long-ribbed Appennine." PERSIUS.