continued his narration as follows:--

"I confess to you," says he, "that the delight in repeating our own
works is so predominant in a poet, that I find nothing can totally root
it out of the soul. Happy would it be for those persons if their hearers
could be delighted in the same manner: but alas! hence that ingens
solitudo complained of by Horace: for the vanity of mankind is so much
greedier and more general than their avarice, that no beggar is so ill
received by them as he who solicits their praise.

"This I sufficiently experienced in the character of a poet; for my
company was shunned (I believe on this account chiefly) by my whole
house: nay, there were few who would submit to hearing me read my
poetry, even at the price of sharing in my provisions. The only
person who gave me audience was a brother poet; he indeed fed me with
commendation very liberally: but, as I was forced to hear and commend in
my turn, I perhaps bought his attention dear enough.

"Well, sir, if my expectations of the reward I hoped from my first poem
had balked me, I had now still greater reason to complain; for, instead
of being preferred or commended for the second, I was enjoined a very
severe penance by my superior, for ludicrously comparing the pope to a
f--t. My poetry was now the jest of every company, except some few who
spoke of it with detestation; and I found that, instead of recommending
me to preferment, it had effectually barred me from all probability of
attaining it.

"These discouragements had now induced me to lay down my pen and write
no more. But, as Juvenal says,

--Si discedas, Laqueo tenet ambitiosi
Consuetudo mali.

"I was an example of the truth of this assertion, for I soon betook
myself again to my muse. Indeed, a poet hath the same happiness with a
man who is dotingly fond of an ugly woman. The one enjoys his muse, and
the other his mistress, with a pleasure very little abated by the esteem
of the world, and only undervalues their taste for not corresponding
with his own.

"It is unnecessary to mention any more of my poems; they had all the
same fate; and though in reality some of my latter pieces deserved (I
may now speak it without the imputation of vanity) a better success,
as I had the character of a bad writer, I found it impossible ever to
obtain the reputation of a good one. Had I possessed the merit of Homer
I could have hoped for no applause; since it must have been a profound
secret; f