Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/205

 Called forth Iambics: now they tread the stage In buskin or in sock, conduct discourse, Lead action on, and awe the mob perforce.
 * The glorious gods, the gods' heroic seed,

The conquering boxer, the victorious steed, The joys of wine, the lover's fond desire, Such themes the Muse appropriates to the lyre.
 * Why hail me poet, if I fail to seize

The shades of style, its fixed proprieties? Why should false shame compel me to endure An ignorance which common pains would cure?
 * A comic subject steadily declines

To be related in high tragic lines. The Thyestean feast no less disdains The vulgar vehicle of comic strains. Each has its place allotted; each is bound To keep it, nor invade its neighbour's ground. Yet Comedy sometimes will raise her note: See Chremes, how he swells his angry throat! And when a tragic hero tells his woes, The terms he chooses are akin to prose. Peleus or Telephus, suppose him poor Or driven to exile, talks in tropes no more; His yard-long words desert him, when he tries To draw forth tears from sympathetic eyes.
 * Mere grace is not enough: a play should thrill

The hearer's soul, and move it at its will. Smiles are contagious; so are tears; to see Another sobbing, brings a sob from me. No, no, good Peleus; set the example, pray,