f speaking makes us lose
the appetite of his plot; his refined grace and elegance of diction
everywhere occupy us: he is so pleasant throughout,

"Liquidus, puroque simillimus amni,"

["Liquid, and likest the pure river."
--Horace, Ep., ii. s, 120.]

and so possesses the soul with his graces that we forget those of his
fable. This same consideration carries me further: I observe that the
best of the ancient poets have avoided affectation and the hunting after,
not only fantastic Spanish and Petrarchic elevations, but even the softer
and more gentle touches, which are the ornament of all succeeding poesy.
And yet there is no good judgment that will condemn this in the ancients,
and that does not incomparably more admire the equal polish, and that
perpetual sweetness and flourishing beauty of Catullus's epigrams, than
all the stings with which Martial arms the tails of his. This is by the
same reason that I gave before, and as Martial says of himself:

"Minus illi ingenio laborandum fuit,
in cujus locum materia successerat:"

["He had the less for his wit to do that the subject itself
supplied what was necessary."--Martial, praef. ad lib. viii.]

The first, without being moved, or without getting angry, make themselves
sufficiently felt; they have matter enough of laughter throughout, they
need not tickle themselves; the others have need of foreign assistance;
as they have the less wit they must have the more body; they mount on
horseback, because they are not able to stand on their own legs. As in
our balls, those mean fellows who teach to dance, not being able to
represent the presence and dignity of our noblesse, are fain to put
themselves forward with dangerous jumping, and other strange motions and
tumblers tricks; and the ladies are less put to it in dance; where there
are various coupees, changes, and quick motions of body, than in some
other of a more sedate kind, where they are only to move a natural pace,
and to represent their ordinary grace and presence. And so I have seen
good drolls, when in their own everyday clothes, and with the same face
they always wear, give us all the pleasure of their art, when their
apprentices, not yet arrived at such a pitch of perfection, are fain to
meal their faces, put themselves into ridiculous disguises, and make a
hundred grotesque faces to give us whereat to laugh. This concept