There are two things which very much discourage Wit; ignorant Readers, and want of Mecaenasses to encourage their Endeavours.  For the first, I have read of an eminent Poet, who passing by a company of Bricklayers at work, who were repeating some of his Verses, but in such a manner as quite marred the Sence and Meaning of them; he snatching up a Hammer, fell to breaking their Bricks; and being demanded the reason thereof, he told them, that they spoiled his Work, and he spoiled theirs.  And for the second; what greater encouragement to Ingenuity than Liberality?  Hear what the Poet Martial saith, Lib. 10.  Epig. 11.

What deathless numbers from my Pen would flow, What Wars would my Pierian Trumpet blow, If, as Augustus now again did live, So Rome to me would a Mecaenas give.

The ingenious Mr. Oldham, the glory of our late Age, in one of his Satyrs, makes the renowned Spenser’s Ghost thus speak to him, disswading him from the Study of Poetry.

Chuse some old English Hero for thy Theme, Bold Arthur, or great Edward_’s greater Son, Or our fifth_ Henry, matchless to renown; Make Agin-Court, and Crescy_-fields out-vie The fam’d_ Laucinan_-shores, and walls of_ Troy; What Scipio, what Maecenas wouldst thou find; What Sidney now to thy great project kind? Bless me! how great a Genius! how each Line Is big with Sense! how glorious a design Does through the whole, and each proportion shine!

How lofty all his Thoughts, and how inspir’d!  Pity, such wondrous Parts are not preferr’d:  Cry a gay wealthy Sot, who would not bail, For bare Five Pounds the Author out of Jail, Should he starve there and rot; who, if a Brief Came out the needy Poets to relieve, To the whole Tribe would scarce a Tester give.

But some will say, it is not so much the Patrons as the Poets fault, whose wide Mouths speak nothing but Bladders and Bumbast, treating only of trifles, the Muses Haberdashers of small wares.

  Whose Wit is but a Tavern-Tympany,
  The Shavings and the Chips of Poetry.

Indeed such Pedlars to the Muses, whose Verse runs like the Tap, and whose invention ebbs and flows as the Barrel, deserve not the name of Poets, and are justly rejected as the common Scriblers of the times:  but for such who fill’d with Phebean-fire, deserve to be crowned with a wreath of Stars; for such brave Souls, the darlings of the Delian Deity, for these to be scorn’d, contemn’d, and disregarded, must needs be the fault of the times; I shall only give you one instance of a renowned Poet, out of the same Author.