enough received. I
envy the happiness of those who can please and hug themselves in what
they do; for 'tis an easy thing to be so pleased, because a man extracts
that pleasure from himself, especially if he be constant in his
self-conceit. I know a poet, against whom the intelligent and the
ignorant, abroad and at home, both heaven and earth exclaim that he has
but very little notion of it; and yet, for all that, he has never a whit
the worse opinion of himself; but is always falling upon some new piece,
always contriving some new invention, and still persists in his opinion,
by so much the more obstinately, as it only concerns him to maintain it.

My works are so far from pleasing me, that as often as I review them,
they disgust me:

"Cum relego, scripsisse pudet; quia plurima cerno,
Me quoque, qui feci, judice, digna lini."

["When I reperuse, I blush at what I have written; I ever see one
passage after another that I, the author, being the judge, consider
should be erased."--Ovid, De Ponto, i. 5, 15.]

I have always an idea in my soul, and a sort of disturbed image which
presents me as in a dream with a better form than that I have made use
of; but I cannot catch it nor fit it to my purpose; and even that idea is
but of the meaner sort. Hence I conclude that the productions of those
great and rich souls of former times are very much beyond the utmost
stretch of my imagination or my wish; their writings do not only satisfy
and fill me, but they astound me, and ravish me with admiration; I judge
of their beauty; I see it, if not to the utmost, yet so far at least as
'tis possible for me to aspire. Whatever I undertake, I owe a sacrifice
to the Graces, as Plutarch says of some one, to conciliate their favour:

"Si quid enim placet,
Si quid dulce horninum sensibus influit,
Debentur lepidis omnia Gratiis."

["If anything please that I write, if it infuse delight into men's
minds, all is due to the charming Graces." The verses are probably
by some modern poet.]

They abandon me throughout; all I write is rude; polish and beauty are
wanting: I cannot set things off to any advantage; my handling adds
nothing to the matter; for which reason I must have it forcible, very
full, and that has lustre of its own. If I pitch upon subjects that are
popular and gay, 'tis to follow my own inclination, who do not aff