I thought we knew they toil not, neither do
they spin. It goes on--

"Then the cattle and the flowers
Yet shall raise their drooping heads,
And, refreshed by plenteous showers,
Lie down joyful in their beds."

Whether the flowers are to lie down in the cattle beds or the cattle are
to lie down in the flower beds does not perhaps distinctly appear, but I
venture to think that either catastrophe is not so much to be desired as
the poet seems to imagine.

In the Diary of Jeames yellowplush a couplet of Lord Lytton's _Sea
Captain_ is thus dealt with--

"Girl, beware,
The love that trifles round the charms it gilds
Oft ruins while it shines."

"Igsplane this men and angels! I've tried everyway, back'ards, for'ards,
and in all sorts of tranceposishons as thus--

The love that ruins round the charms it shines
Gilds while it trifles oft,

or

The charm that gilds around the love it ruins
Oft trifles while it shines,

or

The ruin that love gilds and shines around
Oft trifles while it charms,

or

Love while it charms, shines round and ruins oft
The trifles that it gilds,

or

The love that trifles, gilds, and ruins oft
While round the charms it shines.

All which are as sensable as the fust passidge."

Dryden added coarseness to strength in his remarks when he wrote of one
of Settle's plays:--"To conclude this act with the most rumbling piece of
nonsense spoken yet--

'To flattering lightning our feigned smiles conform,
Which, backed with thunder, do but gild a storm.'

Conform a smile to lightning, make a smile imitate lightning; lightning
sure is a threatening thing. And this lightning must gild a storm; and
gild a storm by being backed by thunder. So that here is gilding by
conforming, smiling lightning, backing and thundering. I am mistaken if
nonsense is not here pretty thick sown. Sure the poet writ these two
lines aboard some smack in a storm, and, being sea-sick, spewed up a good
lump of clotted nonsense at once." Dryden wrote in a fit of rage and
spite, and it is not necessary to be vulgar in order to be strong; but it
is really a good thing to expose in plain language the meandering
nonsense which, unless detected, is apt to impose upon careless readers,
and so to encourage writers in their bad habits.

A young friend of mine imagined that he could make his fame as a painter.
Holding one of his pictures before hi