long as they are satisfied with the sound. Out of such
concern we get tuneful trifles and verses empty of substance. Writers
who have by an attentive consideration of the poets achieved the
faculty of poetic diction and rhythm quite often fall into this error.
They abound in choice phrases and so are in effect content to smooth
over the commonplace with a not indecorous make-up. You can see this
in many poems and epigrams of Buchanan, Borbonius, and Barleius. If
the reader is not quite attentive such poems will often deceive him,
but being re-read and examined they beget a kind of distaste because
of the thinness of the matter. Consequently, we have looked carefully
for this fault, and have eliminated many poems that are melodious in
this way and have nothing inside.

_How diction should be suited to subject-matter._

We come now to the question of conforming the diction and
subject-matter to nature, in which, as was said above, nature must be
considered in its double aspect: namely, in relation to the subjects
of which we speak, and in relation to the audience by whom we are
heard or read.

The agreement of words and subject consists in this: that lofty words
should be fitted to lofty subjects, and lowly to lowly. It is true, of
course, that every kind of writing demands simplicity, but the
simplicity meant is such as does not exclude sublimity or vehemence.
In fact, it is no less faulty to treat high and weighty subjects in a
slight and unassuming style than it is to treat what is slight and
unassuming in a high and weighty style. In both of these ways one
departs from that agreement with nature in which, we have said, beauty
resides. Therefore, not every piece of writing admits the rhetorical
figures and ornaments, and likewise not every one excludes them. The
answer lies wholly in whether there is throughout a complete harmony
between diction and subject.

In addition, I wish you would carefully observe something that few
do--namely, when you temper your diction to the subject, to regard it
not only as it is in itself or in the mind of the writer, but also as
it has been formed by your speech in the minds of your audience. Thus,
the reader is assumed to be unacquainted with what you have to say at
the beginning of a work, and hence you must use simple language to
initiate him into your lines of thought. Afterwards you may build upon
this foundation what you can. It follows that if you are to speak of
some ou