To my Friend M. Ben Jonson, upon his Catiline
If thou hadst itch'd after the wild applause
Of common people, and hadst made thy laws
In writing such as catch'd at present voice,
I should commend the thing, but not thy choice.
But thou hast squared thy rules by what is good,
And art three ages yet from understood:
And (I dare say) in it there lies much wit
Lost, till the reader can grow up to it;
Which they can ne'er outgrow, to find it ill,
But must fall back again, or like it still.
poem by Francis Beaumont
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