“When PHAEDRIA, in the Eunuch, had a command from his mistress to be absent two days; and encouraging himself to go through with it, said, Tandem ego non illa caream, si opus sit, vel totum triduum?  PARMENO to mock the softness of his master, lifting up his hands and eyes, cries out, as it were in admiration, Hui! universum triduum! The elegancy of which universum, though it cannot be rendered in our language; yet leaves an impression of the Wit on our souls.

“But this happens seldom in him [i.e., TERENCE]; in PLAUTUS oftner, who is infinitely too bold in his metaphors and coining words; out of which, many times, his Wit is nothing.  Which, questionless, was one reason why HORACE falls upon him so severely in those verses.

    “Sed Proavi nostri Plautinos el numeros et
     Laudavere sales, nimium patienter utrumque
     Ne dicam stolide.

“For HORACE himself was cautious to obtrude [in obtruding] a new word upon his readers:  and makes custom and common use, the best measure of receiving it into our writings,

    “Multa renascentur quae nunc cecidere, cadentque
     Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus
     Quem penes, arbitrium est, et jus, et norma loquendi.

“The not observing of this Rule, is that which the World has blamed in our satirist CLEVELAND.  To express a thing hard and unnaturally is his New Way of Elocution.  Tis true, no poet but may sometimes use a catachresis.  VIRGIL, does it,

“Mistaque ridenti Colocasia fundet Acaniho—­

“in his Eclogue of POLLIO.

“And in his Seventh AEneid—­

           “Mirantur et unda,
    Miratur nemus, insuetam fulgentia longe,
    Scuta virum fluvio, pictaque innare carinas.

“And OVID once; so modestly, that he asks leave to do it.

“Si verbo audacia, detur
Haud metuam summi dixisse Palatia coeli

“calling the Court of JUPITER, by the name of AUGUSTUS his palace.  Though, in another place, he is more bold; where he says, Et longas visent Capitolia pompas.

“But to do this always, and never be able to write a line without it, though it may be admired by some few pedants, will not pass upon those who know that Wit is best conveyed to us in the most easy language:  and is most to be admired, when a great thought comes dressed in words so commonly received, that it is understood by the meanest apprehensions; as the best meat is the most easily digested.  But we cannot read a verse of CLEVELAND’s, without making a face at it; as if every word were a pill to swallow.  He gives us, many times, a hard nut to break our teeth, without a kernel for our pains.  So that there is this difference between his Satires and Doctor DONNE’s:  that the one [DONNE] gives us deep thoughts in common language, though rough cadence; the other [CLEVELAND] gives us common thoughts in abtruse words.  ’Tis true, in some places, his wit is independent of his words, as in that of the Rebel Scot—­