If he have
a friend, whose hastiness in writing is his greatest fault, Horace
would have taught him to have minced the matter, and to have called
it readiness of thought, and a flowing fancy; for friendship will
allow a man to christen an imperfection by the name of some neighbour
virtue--
Vellem in amicitia sic erraremus; et isti
Errori nomen virtus posuisset honestum.
But he would never allowed him to have called a slow man hasty,
or a hasty writer a slow drudge, as Juvenal explains it--
------- Canibus pigris, scabieque vestusta
Laevibus, et siccae lambentibus ora lucernae,
Nomen erit, Pardus, Tigris, Leo; si quid adhuc est
Quod fremit in terris violentius.
Yet Lucretius laughs at a foolish lover, even for excusing the
imperfections of his mistress--
Nigra
est, immunda et foetida
Balba loqui non quit, ; muta pudens est, etc.
But to drive it ad Aethiopem cygnum is not to be endured. I leave
him to interpret this by the benefit of his French version on the
other side, and without further considering him, than I have the rest
of my illiterate censors, whom I have disdained to answer, because
they are not qualified for judges.
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