stage of life, and are apt to indulge
ourselves in talk, ought to consider if what we speak be worth being
heard, and endeavour to make our discourse like that of Nestor, which
Homer compares to the flowing of honey for its sweetness.

I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this excess I am speaking of,
when I cannot conclude without observing that Milton certainly thought
of this passage in Homer, when, in his description of an eloquent
spirit, he says--

"His tongue dropped manna."

XVI.--A VERY PRETTY POET.

Will's Coffee-house, April 24.

I yesterday came hither about two hours before the company generally
make their appearance, with a design to read over all the newspapers;
but, upon my sitting down, I was accosted by Ned Softly, who saw me from
a corner in the other end of the room, where I found he had been writing
something. "Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "I observe by a late paper of
yours, that you and I are just of a humour; for you must know, of all
impertinences, there is nothing which I so much hate as news. I never
read a gazette in my life; and never trouble my head about our armies,
whether they win or lose, or in what part of the world they lie
encamped." Without giving me time to reply, he drew a paper of verses
out of his pocket, telling me, "that he had something which would
entertain me more agreeably, and that he would desire my judgment upon
every line, for that we had time enough before us till the company came
in."

Ned Softly is a very pretty poet, and a great admirer of easy lines.
Waller is his favourite: and as that admirable writer has the best and
worst verses of any among our great English poets, Ned Softly has got
all the bad ones without book, which he repeats upon occasion, to show
his reading, and garnish his conversation. Ned is indeed a true English
reader, incapable of relishing the great and masterly strokes of
this art; but wonderfully pleased with the little Gothic ornaments
of epigrammatical conceits, turns, points, and quibbles, which are so
frequent in the most admired of our English poets, and practised by
those who want genius and strength to represent, after the manner of the
ancients, simplicity in its natural beauty and perfection.

Finding myself unavoidably engaged in such a conversation, I was
resolved to turn my pain into a pleasure and to divert myself as well
as I could with so very odd a fellow. "You must understand," says Ned,
"that the son