The pair of wings consists of twelve verses, or rather feathers,
every verse decreasing gradually in its measure according to its
situation in the wing. The subject of it, as in the rest of the
poems which follow, bears some remote affinity with the figure, for
it describes a god of love, who is always painted with wings.

The axe, methinks, would have been a good figure for a lampoon, had
the edge of it consisted of the most satirical parts of the work;
but as it is in the original, I take it to have been nothing else
but the poesy of an axe which was consecrated to Minerva, and was
thought to be the same that Epeus made use of in the building of the
Trojan horse; which is a hint I shall leave to the consideration of
the critics. I am apt to think that the poesy was written
originally upon the axe, like those which our modern cutlers
inscribe upon their knives; and that, therefore, the poesy still
remains in its ancient shape, though the axe itself is lost.

The shepherd's pipe may be said to be full of music, for it is
composed of nine different kinds of verses, which by their several
lengths resemble the nine stops of the old musical instrument, that
is likewise the subject of the poem.

The altar is inscribed with the epitaph of Troilus the son of
Hecuba; which, by the way, makes me believe that these false pieces
of wit are much more ancient than the authors to whom they are
generally ascribed; at least, I will never be persuaded that so fine
a writer as Theocritus could have been the author of any such simple
works.

It was impossible for a man to succeed in these performances who was