Page:An Essay of Dramatic Poesy.djvu/31

ticular exceptions against some writers, and said, the publick magistrate ought to send betimes to forbid them; and that it concerned the peace and quiet of all honest people, that ill poets should be as well silenced as seditious preachers. ⁿ 'In my opinion,' replied Eugenius, 'you pursue your point too far; for as to my own particular, I am so great a lover of poesy, that I could wish them all rewarded, who attempt but to do well; at least, I would not have them worse used than one of their brethren was by Sylla the Dictator^[1]:—Quem in condone vidimus (says Tully,) cum ei libellum malus poeta de populo subjecisset, quod epigramma in cum fecisset tantummodo alternis versibus longiusculis, statim ex iis rebus quas tunc^[2] vendebat jubere ei praemium fribui, sub ea conditione ne quid postea scriberet.' ⁿ 'I could wish with all my heart,' replied Crites, 'that many whom we know were as bountifully thanked upon the same condition,—that they would never trouble us again. For amongst others, I have a mortal apprehension of two poets ⁿ, whom this victory, with the help of both her wings, will never be able to escape.' ' 'Tis easy^[3] to guess whom you intend,' said Lisideius; 'and without naming them, I ask you, if one of them does not perpetually pay us with clenches upon words, and a certain clownish kind of raillery? if now and then he does not offer at a catachresis^[4] or Clevelandism^[5], wresting and tor-

1. then [than] Sylla the Dictator did one of their brethren heretofore, A.
2. quae tunc, A.
3. escape; 'tis easie, A.
4. Catecresis, A.
5. so A; Cleivelandism B, and edd.