it readiness of thought, and a flowing fancy; for friendship will
allow a man to christen an imperfection by the name of some neighbour
virtue--

Vellem in amicitia sic erraremus; et isti
Errori nomen virtus posuisset honestum.

But he would never allowed him to have called a slow man hasty,
or a hasty writer a slow drudge, as Juvenal explains it--

------- Canibus pigris, scabieque vestusta
Laevibus, et siccae lambentibus ora lucernae,
Nomen erit, Pardus, Tigris, Leo; si quid adhuc est
Quod fremit in terris violentius.

Yet Lucretius laughs at a foolish lover, even for excusing the
imperfections of his mistress--

Nigra est, immunda et foetida
Balba loqui non quit, ; muta pudens est, etc.

But to drive it ad Aethiopem cygnum is not to be endured. I leave
him to interpret this by the benefit of his French version on the
other side, and without further considering him, than I have the rest
of my illiterate censors, whom I have disdained to answer, because
they are not qualified for judges. It remains that I acquiant the
reader, that I have endeavoured in this play to follow the practice
of the ancients, who, as Mr. Rymer has judiciously observed, are and
ought to be our masters. Horace likewise gives it for a rule in his
art of poetry--