PROLOGUE TO DIPSYCHUS.
‘I hope it is in good plain verse,’ said my uncle,—‘none of
your hurry-scurry anapæsts, as you call them, in lines which
sober people read for plain heroics. Nothing is more disagreeable
than to say a line over two, or, it may be, three or
four times, and at last not be sure that there are not three or
four ways of reading, each as good and as much intended
as another. Simplex duntaxat et unum. But you young
people think Horace and your uncles old fools.’
‘Certainly, my dear sir,’ said I; ‘that is, I mean, Horace
and my uncle are perfectly right. Still, there is an instructed
ear and an uninstructed. A rude taste for identical
recurrences would exact sing-song from “Paradise Lost,” and
grumble because “Il Penseroso” doesn't run like a nursery
rhyme.’ ‘Well, well,’ said my uncle, ‘sunt certi denique fines,
no doubt. So commence, my young Piso, while Aristarchus
is tolerably wakeful, and do not waste by your logic the fund
you will want for your poetry.’