Easy poetry has been so long excluded by ambition of ornament, and
luxuriance of imagery, that its nature seems now to be forgotten.
Affectation, however opposite to ease, is sometimes mistaken for it; and
those who aspire to gentle elegance, collect female phrases and
fashionable barbarisms, and imagine that style to be easy which custom
has made familiar. Such was the idea of the poet who wrote the following
verses to a _countess cutting paper_:
Pallas grew _vap'rish once and odd_,
She would not _do the least right thing_
Either for Goddess or for God,
Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.
Jove frown'd, and "Use (he cried) those eyes
So skilful, and those hands so taper;
Do something exquisite and wise"--
She bow'd, obey'd him, and cut paper.
This vexing him who gave her birth,
Thought by all Heaven a _burning shame_,
_What does she next_, but bids on earth
Her Burlington do just the same?
Pallas, you give yourself _strange airs_;
But sure you'll find it hard to spoil
The sense and taste of one that bears
The name of Savile and of Boyle.
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