Rules they can write, but, like the _College Tribe_,
Take not that Physick which their Rules prescribe.
I scorn to praise a plodding, formal Fool,
_Insipidly_ correct, and _dull_ by Rule:
_Homer_, with all his _Nodding_, I would chuse,
Before the more exact _Sicilian_ Muse.
Who'd not be _Dryden_; tho' his Faults are great,
Sooner than our Laborious _Laureat_?
Not but a decent Neatness, I confess,
In _Writing_ is requir'd, as well as _Dress_.
Yet still in both the _unaffected Air_
Will always please the _Witty_ and the _Fair_.

_I would not here be thought to be a Patron of slovenly Negligence; for
there is nothing which breeds a greater Aversion in Men of a_ Delicate
Taste. _Yet you know, Sir, that, after all our Care and Caution, the
Weakness of our Nature will eternally mix it self in every thing we
write; and an over curious Study of being correct, enervates the Vigour
of the Mind, slackens the Spirits, and cramps the Genius of a_ Free
Writer. _He who creeps by the Shore, may shelter himself from a Storm,
but likely to make very few Discoveries: And the cautious Writer, who is
timorous of disobliging the captious Reader, may produce you true
Grammar, and unexceptionable_ Prosodia, _but most stupid Poetry._

In vitium culpæ ducit fuga, si caret arte.

_A slavish Fear of committing an Oversight, betrays a Man to more
inextricable Errours, than the Boldness of an enterprizing Author, whose
artful Carelesness is more instructive and delightful than all the Pains