Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/407

 dined, are asking over their cups, 'What has divine poesy to say'? Whereupon some fellow with a purple mantle round his shoulders lisps out with a snuffle some insipid trash about a Phyllis or a Hypsipyle or some other dolorous poetic theme, mincing his words, and letting them trip daintily over his palate. The great men signify their approval; will notyour poet's ashes be happy now? will not the grave-stone press more lightly upon his bones? The lesser guests chime in with their assent: will not violets now spring up from those remains, from the tomb and its thrice-blessed ashes?"

F. "You are scoffing, and use your turned-up nose too freely. Do you mean to tell me that any man who has uttered words worthy of cedar oil will disown the wish to have earned a place in the mouths of men, and to leave behind him poems that will have nothing to fear from mackerel or from spice?"

P. Well, my friend, whoever you are whom I have set up to speak on the opposing side, I am the last man, if by chance when writing I let fall something good (rare bird as that would be), I am the last man, I say, to be afraid of praise. My heart is not made of horn! But I decline to admit that the final and supreme test of excellence is to be found in your 'Bravo!' and your 'Beautiful!' Just sift out all those 'Bravos': what do they not contain? Will you not find there the bedrugged Iliad of Attius, and all the love-ditties spouted by your grandees while digesting their dinners—all the stuff in short that is scribbled on couches of citron-wood? You know how to serve up a sow's paunch piping hot: you know how to present a shivering client with a 321