Observe no man, doff not cap to that gentleman to-day at dinner,
to whom, not two nights since, you were beholden for a supper;
but, after a turn or two in the room, take occasion (pulling out
your gloves) to have Epigram, or Satire, or Sonnet fastened in
one of them, that may (as it were unwittingly to you) offer
itself to the Gentlemen: they will presently desire it: but,
without much conjuration from them, and a pretty kind of
counterfeit lothness in yourself, do not read it; and, though it
be none of your own, swear you made it.
This coupling of injunction and prohibition is worthy of Shakespeare or
of Sterne:
Marry, if you chance to get into your hands any witty thing of
another man's, that is somewhat better, I would counsel you
then, if demand be made who composed it, you may say: "'Faith,
a learned Gentleman, a very worthy friend." And this seeming to
lay it on another man will be counted either modesty in you, or
a sign that you are not ambitious of praise, _or else that you
dare not take it upon you, for fear of the sharpness it carries
with it_.
The modern poetaster by profession knows a trick worth any two of these:
but it is curious to observe the community of baseness, and the
comparative innocence of awkwardness and inexperience, which at once
connote the species and denote the specimens of the later and the
earlier animalcule.
Pages:
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109