pleasant (mirth-making) consul." Let it go before, or come after, a good
sentence or a thing well said, is always in season; if it neither suit
well with what went before, nor has much coherence with what follows
after, it is good in itself. I am none of those who think that good
rhyme makes a good poem. Let him make short long, and long short if he
will, 'tis no great matter; if there be invention, and that the wit and
judgment have well performed their offices, I will say, here's a good
poet, but an ill rhymer.

"Emunctae naris, durus componere versus."

["Of delicate humour, but of rugged versification."
--Horace, Sat, iv. 8.]

Let a man, says Horace, divest his work of all method and measure,

"Tempora certa modosque, et, quod prius ordine verbum est,
Posterius facias, praeponens ultima primis
Invenias etiam disjecti membra poetae."

["Take away certain rhythms and measures, and make the word which
was first in order come later, putting that which should be last
first, you will still find the scattered remains of the poet."
--Horace, Sat., i. 4, 58.]

he will never the more lose himself for that; the very pieces will be
fine by themselves. Menander's answer had this meaning, who being
reproved by a friend, the time drawing on at which he had promised a
comedy, that he had not yet fallen in hand with it; "It is made, and
ready," said he, "all but the verses."--[Plutarch, Whether the Athenians