r he will only prove a blind admirer, not a
critic. From hence it comes that so many satires on poets, and
censures of their writings, fly abroad. Men of pleasant conversation,
(at least esteemed so) and endued with a trifling kind of fancy,
perhaps helped out with some smattering of Latin, are ambitious to
distinguish themselves from the herd of gentlemen, by their poetry;

_Rarus enim ferme; sensus communis in illa
Fortuna._

And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what
fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates,
but they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their
nakedness to public view? Not considering that they are not to expect
the same approbation from sober men, which they have found from their
flatterers after the third bottle. If a little glittering in discourse
has passed them on us for witty men, where was the necessity of
undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill title to an estate,
but yet is in possession of it; would he bring it of his own accord,
to be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talent, yet
have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can be
urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to
scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves
ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right, where he said, "That no
man is satisfied with his own condition." A poet is not pleased,
because he is not rich; and the rich are discontented, because the
poets will not admit them of their number. Thus the case is hard with
writers: If they succeed not, they must starve; and if they do, some
malicious satire is prepared to level them, for daring to please
without their leave. But while they are so eager to destroy the fame
of others, their ambition is manifest in their concernment; some poem
of their own is to lie produced, and the slaves are to be laid flat
with their faces on the ground, that the monarch may appear in the
greater majesty[3].

Dionysius and Nero had the same longing, but with all their power they
could never bring their business well about. 'Tis true, they
proclaimed themselves poets by sound of trumpet; and poets they were,
upon pain of death to any man who durst call them otherwise. The
audience had a fine time on't, you may imagine; they sat in a bodily
fear, and looked as demurely as they could: for it was a hanging
matter to laugh unseasonably