Page:An Essay of Dramatic Poesy.djvu/56

36 in his eclogue of Pollio; and in his seventh Æneid,

And Ovid once so modestly, that he asks leave to do it:

calling the court of Jupiter by the name of Augustus his palace; though in another place he is more bold, where he says,—et longas visent Capitolia pompas. But to do this always, and never be able to write a line without it, though it may be admired by some few pedants, will not pass upon those who know that wit is best conveyed to us in the most easy language; and is most to be admired when a great thought comes dressed in words so commonly received, that it is understood by the meanest apprehensions, as the best meat is the most easily digested: but we cannot read a verse of Cleiveland's without making a face at it, as if every word were a pill to swallow: he gives us many times a hard nut to break our teet without a kernel for our pains. So that there is this difference betwixt his Satires and doctor Donne's; that the one gives us deep thoughts in common language, though rough cadence; the other gives us common thoughts in abstruse words: 'tis true, in some places his wit is independent of his words, as in that of the rebel Scot: