PROLOGUE TO DIPSYCHUS.
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I hope it is in good plain verse,’ said my uncle,—‘none of yourhurry-scurry anapæsts, as you call them, in lines which sober people readfor plain heroics. Nothing is more disagreeable than to say a line overtwo, or, it may be, three or four times, and at last not be sure thatthere are not three or four ways of reading, each as good and as muchintended as another. _Simplex duntaxat et unum._ But you young peoplethink Horace and your uncles old fools.’ ‘Certainly, my dear sir,’ said I; ‘that is, I mean, Horace and myuncle are perfectly right. Still, there is an instructed ear and anuninstructed. A rude taste for identical recurrences would exactsing-song from “Paradise Lost,” and grumble because “Il Penseroso”doesn’t run like a nursery rhyme.’ ‘Well, well,’ said my uncle, ‘_suntcerti denique fines_, no doubt. So commence, my young Piso, whileAristarchus is tolerably wakeful, and do not waste by your logic the fundyou will want for your poetry.’ _DIPSYCHUS._[6]
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