‘Let us prove the equality first,’ said Cadurcis.  ’The Greeks excelled in every species of poetry.  In some we do not even attempt to rival them.  We have not a single modern ode, or a single modern pastoral.  We have no one to place by Pindar, or the exquisite Theocritus.  As for the epic, I confess myself a heretic as to Homer; I look upon the Iliad as a remnant of national songs; the wise ones agree that the Odyssey is the work of a later age.  My instinct agrees with the result of their researches.  I credit their conclusion.  The Paradise Lost is, doubtless, a great production, but the subject is monkish.  Dante is national, but he has all the faults of a barbarous age.  In general the modern epic is framed upon the assumption that the Iliad is an orderly composition.  They are indebted for this fallacy to Virgil, who called order out of chaos; but the Aeneid, all the same, appears to me an insipid creation.  And now for the drama.  You will adduce Shakspeare?’

‘There are passages in Dante,’ said Herbert, ’not inferior, in my opinion, to any existing literary composition, but, as a whole, I will not make my stand on him; I am not so clear that, as a lyric poet, Petrarch may not rival the Greeks.  Shakspeare I esteem of ineffable merit.’

‘And who is Shakspeare?’ said Cadurcis.  ’We know of him as much as we do of Homer.  Did he write half the plays attributed to him?  Did he ever write a single whole play?  I doubt it.  He appears to me to have been an inspired adapter for the theatres, which were then not as good as barns.  I take him to have been a botcher up of old plays.  His popularity is of modern date, and it may not last; it would have surprised him marvellously.  Heaven knows, at present, all that bears his name is alike admired; and a regular Shaksperian falls into ecstasies with trash which deserves a niche in the Dunciad.  For my part, I abhor your irregular geniuses, and I love to listen to the little nightingale of Twickenham.’

‘I have often observed,’ said Herbert, ’that writers of an unbridled imagination themselves, admire those whom the world, erroneously, in my opinion, and from a confusion of ideas, esteems correct.  I am myself an admirer of Pope, though I certainly should not ever think of classing him among the great creative spirits.  And you, you are the last poet in the world, Cadurcis, whom one would have fancied his votary.’

‘I have written like a boy,’ said Cadurcis.  ’I found the public bite, and so I baited on with tainted meat.  I have never written for fame, only for notoriety; but I am satiated; I am going to turn over a new leaf.’