“Of those few fools, who with ill stars are curst,Sure scribbling fools, called poets, fare the worst:For they're a sort of fools which fortune makes,And, after she has made them fools, forsakes.With Nature's oafs 'tis quite a different case,For Fortune favours all her idiot race.In her own nest the cuckoo eggs we find,Over which she broods to hatch the changeling kind:No portion for her own she has to spare,So much she dotes on her adopted care.Poets are bubbles, by the town drawn in,Suffered at first some trifling stakes to win:But what unequal hazards do they run!Each time they write they venture all they've won:The Squire that's buttered still, is sure to be undone.This author, heretofore, has found your favour,But pleads no merit from his past behaviour.To build on that might prove a vain presumption,Should grant to poets made admit resumption,And in Parnassus he must lose his seat,If that be found a forfeited estate.”

William Congreve

William Congreve - “Of those few fools, who with ill...” 1

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