Page:The Rehearsal - Villiers (1672).djvu/8

 Johns. What are those Rules, I pray?

Bayes. Why, Sir, my first Rule is the Rule of Transversion, or Regula Duplex: changing Verse into Prose, or Prose into verse, alternative as you please.

Smi. How's that, Sir, by a Rule, I pray?

Bayes. Why, thus, Sir; nothing more easie when understood: I take a Book in my hand, either at home, or elsewhere, for that's all one, if there be any Wit in't, as there is no Book but has some, I Transverse it; that is, if it be Prose, put it into Verse, (but that takes up some time) if it be Verse, put it into Prose.

Johns. Methinks, Mr. Bayes, that putting Verse into Prose should be call'd Transprosing.

Bayes. By my troth, a very good Notion, and hereafter it shall be so.

Smi. Well, Sir, and what d'ye do with it then?

Bayes. Make it my own. 'Tis so alter'd that no man can know it. My next Rule is the Rule of Record, and by way of Table-Book. Pray observe.

Johns. Well, we hear you: go on.

Bayes. As thus. I come into a Coffee-house, or some other place where wittie men resort, I make as if I minded nothing; (do you mark?) but as soon as any one speaks, pop I slap it down, and make that, too, my own.

Johns. But, Mr. Bayes, are not you sometimes in danger of their making you restore, by force, what you have gotten thus by Art?

Bayes. No, Sir; the world's unmindful: they never take notice of these things.

Smi. But pray, Mr. Bayes, among all your other Rules, have you no one Rule for Invention?

Bayes. Yes, Sir; that's my third Rule that I have here in my pocket.

Smi. What Rule can that be?

Bayes. Why, Sir, when I have any thing to invent, I never trouble my head about it, as other men do; but presently turn o'er this Book, and there I have, at one view, all that Perseus,