Lyra Frivola

Quid had I my Quid pro Quo. Yet?for the Man who pays his painful Pence Some Laws may frame from dark Experience : Still from the Wells of harsh Adversity May Wisdom draw the Pail of Common Sense? Take these few Rules, which?carefully rehearsed? Will land the User safely in a First, Second, or Third, or Gulf: and after all There's nothing lower than a Plough at worst. Plain is the Trick of doing Latin Prose ; An Esse Videantur at the Close Makes it to all Intents and Purposes As good as anything of Cicero's. Yet let it not your anxious Mind perturb Should Grammar's Law your Diction fail to curb: Be comforted : it is like Tacitus : 'Tis mostly done by leaving out the Verb. Mark well the Point: and thus your Answer fit That you thereto all Reference omit, But argue still about it and about Of This, and That, and T'Other?not of It. RUBAIYYAT OF MODERATIONS 15 Say, why should You upon your proper Hook Dilate on Things which whoso cares to look Will find, in Libraries or otherwhere, Already stated in a printed Book ? Keep clear of Facts: the Fool who deals in those A Mucker he inevitably goes: The dusty Don who looks your Paper o'er He knows about it all?or thinks he knows. A Pipe, a Teapot, and a Pencil blue, A Crib, perchance a Lexicon?and You Beside him singing in a Wilderness Of Suppositions palpably untrue? 'Tis all he needs : he is content with these : Not Facts he wants, but soft H... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.