Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/68



ES, I did say that, view him as a bard, Lucilius is unrhythmic, rugged, hard. Lives there a partisan so weak of brain As to join issue on a fact so plain? But that he had a gift of biting wit, In the same page I hastened to admit. Now understand me: that's a point confessed; But he who grants it grants not all the rest: For, were a bard a bard because he's smart, Laberius' mimes were products of high art. 'Tis not enough to make your reader's face Wear a broad grin, though that too has its place: Terseness there wants, to make the thought ring clear, Nor with a crowd of words confuse the ear: There wants a plastic style, now grave, now light, Now such as bard or orator would write, And now the language of a well-bred man, Who masks his strength, and says not all he can: And pleasantry will often cut clean through Hard knots that gravity would scarce undo. On this the old comedians rested: hence They're still the models of all men of sense,