Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/399

 F. "You are very nasty with your gibes. Do you suppose that any one is so indifferent to fame that he would not care to be ranked among the immortals?" (40–43).

P. "Certainly not. I value praise justly bestowed as much as any man; but I decline to accept the verdict of guests whose favour has been secured by gifts of old clothing and good viands. You say you want the truth? then let me tell it you: you are a mere twaddler, happy only in this that, unlike Janus, you cannot see the gibes made at you behind your back" (44–62).

F. "Anyhow the public are enchanted. Never, they say, did poets write more smoothly and correctly, or handle great themes more nobly" (63–68).

P. "Yes, indeed! To-day we find heroic themes attempted by men who cannot describe the simplest scenes of country life without committing absurdities. Others have a mania for archaisms; and what can be more artificial than our rhetoric? An advocate cannot defend a man on his trial for some crime without using all the embellishments of the schools! He is like the shipwrecked mariner who appeals to you by a song" (69–91).

F. "But you will at least grant that our modern Muse has grace and polish?" (92).

P. "Grace and polish indeed! Let me quote some instances of your modern polish What would Virgil have said of turgid and frothy stuff like that? Now please give me some instances of the tender languishing style " (93–98). (Then follow four lines of furious magniloquent bombast, quoted admiringly by P.'s interlocutor (99–102).) 313