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Besides, I do not know that dulness is strength, or that an observation is slight because it is striking. Mediocrity, insipidity, want of character is the great fault. Mediocribus esse poetis Non Dii, non homines, non concessere columnae. Neither is this privilege allowed to prose-writers in our time any more than to poets formerly.
If I were furnished with materials, I should be very glad to write it. Mr. Scott of Amwell's Elegies were lying in the room. Dr. Johnson observed, 'They are very well; but such as twenty people might write. Upon this I took occasion to controvert Horace's maxim, mediocribus esse poetis Non Di, non homines, non concessere columnae.
The dabblers, whether in verse or in any other high sphere, should be every day unsparingly reminded that neither gods, nor men, nor booksellers have pardoned their mediocrity: mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non Dî, non concessere columnae. Are they not the weeds that prevent the corn coming up, so that they may cover all the ground themselves?
If I had been born of a more irregular complexion, I am afraid I should have made scurvy work; for I never observed any great stability in my soul to resist passions, if they were never so little vehement: I know not how to nourish quarrels and debates in my own bosom, and, consequently, owe myself no great thanks that I am free from several vices: "Si vitiis mediocribus et mea paucis Mendosa est natura, alioqui recta, velut si Egregio inspersos reprehendas corpore naevos:"
To them the poet gave this friendly counsel, to lock up their creations for nine years, and then publish, or as we may shrewdly suspect he meant destroy them. Poetry is the one thing that, if it is to be done at all, must be done well: "Mediocribus esse poetis Non di, non homines, non concessere columnae." In Horace's opinion none of the old poetry came up to this standard.
"Mediocribus esse poetis Non dii, non homines, non concessere columnae." I would to God this sentence was written over the doors of all our printers, to forbid the entrance of so many rhymesters! "Verum Nihil securius est malo poetae."
Mediocribus esse poetis, Non Di, non homines, non concessere columna: it is I say again, not the fault of the art, but that by few men that art can be accomplished. Truly, for myself, meseems I see before my eyes the lost child's disdainful prodigality, turned to envy a swine's dinner: which by the learned divines are thought not historical acts, but instructing parables.
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