The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

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GOOD WRITING.
As 'tis a greater mystery in the art
Of painting, to foreshorten any part,
Than draw it out; so 'tis in books the chief
Of all perfections to be plain and brief.
COURTIERS.
As in all great and crowded fairs
Monsters and puppet-play are wares,
Which in the less will not go off,
Because they have not money enough;
So men in princes' courts will pass
That will not in another place.
INVENTIONS.
All the inventions that the world contains,
Were not by reason first found out, nor brains,
But pass for theirs who had the luck to light
Upon them by mistake or oversight.
LOGICIANS.
Logicians used to clap a proposition,
As justices do criminals, in prison,
And, in as learn'd authentic nonsense, writ
The names of all their moods and figures fit;
For a logician's one that has been broke
To ride and pace his reason by the book;
And by their rules, and precepts, and examples,
To put his wits into a kind of trammels.
LABORIOUS WRITERS.
Those get the least that take the greatest pains,