occasion, he has certainly sounded the very base string of
humility. Poor Flecknoe, indeed, seems to have become proverbial,
as the worst of poets. The Earl of Dorset thus begins a satire on
Edward Howard:

Those damned antipodes to common sense,
Those toils to Flecknoe, pr'ythee, tell me whence
Does all this mighty mass of dulness spring,
Which in such loads thou to the stage dost bring?

4. There is a very flat and prosaic imitation of this sentiment in the
Duke of Buckingham's lines to Pope:

And yet so wondrous, so sublime a thing
As the great Iliad, scarce could make me sing;
Except I justly could at once commend
A good companion, and as firm a friend;
One moral, or a mere well-natured deed,
Does all desert in sciences exceed.

Thus prose may be humbled, as well as exalted; into poetry.




PROLOGUE.


True wit has seen its best days long ago;
It ne'er looked up, since we were dipt in show;