Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/27

Rh to defend it with an epistle; like a saucy booth-keeper, that, when he had put a cheat upon the people, would wrangle and fight with any that would not like it, or would offer to discover it; for which arrogance our poet receives this correction; and, to jerk him a little the sharper, I will not transpose his verse, but by the help of his own words transnonsense sense, that, by the stuff, people may judge the better what his is: Great boy, thy tragedy and sculptures done, From press, and plates in fleets do homeward come; And in ridiculous and humble pride, Their course in ballad-singers' baskets guide, Whose greasy twigs do all new beauties take, From the gay shows thy dainty sculptures make. Thy lines a mess of rhyming nonsense yield, A senseless tale, with flattering fustian fill'd. No grain of sense does in one line appear, Thy words big bulks of boisterous bombast bear, With noise they move, and from players mouths rebound, When their tongues dance to thy words empty sound. Rh