ridiculous excess.—Such was now the rage for poetical composition in the Roman capital, that Horace describes it in the following terms:
Mutavit mentem populus levis, et calet uno
Scribendi studio: pueri patresque severi
Fronde comas vincti coenant, et carmina dictant.—Epist. ii. 1.
* * * * * *
Now the light people bend to other aims;
A lust of scribbling every breast inflames;
Our youth, our senators, with bays are crowned,
And rhymes eternal as our feasts go round.
(190) Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim.—Hor. Epeat. ii. 1.
But every desperate blockhead dares to write,
Verse is the trade of every living wight.—Francis.
The thirst of fame