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You gain your point, if your industrious Art
Can make unusual words easy and plain,
But (if you write of things Abstruse or New)
Some of your own Inventing may be us'd,
(So it be seldom and discreetly done)
But he that hopes to have new Words allow'd,
Must so derive them from the Græcian Spring,
As they may seem to flow without constraint;
Can an Impartial Reader discommend
In Varus, or in Virgil what he likes?
In Plautus or Cœcilius? Why should I
Be envy'd for the little I Invent,
When Ennius and Cato's copious Stile
Have so enrich'd, and so adorn'd our Tongue?
Men ever had, and ever will have leave,
To coin new words well suited to the age:
Words are like Leaves, some wither every year,
Can make unusual words easy and plain,
But (if you write of things Abstruse or New)
Some of your own Inventing may be us'd,
(So it be seldom and discreetly done)
But he that hopes to have new Words allow'd,
Must so derive them from the Græcian Spring,
As they may seem to flow without constraint;
Can an Impartial Reader discommend
In Varus, or in Virgil what he likes?
In Plautus or Cœcilius? Why should I
Be envy'd for the little I Invent,
When Ennius and Cato's copious Stile
Have so enrich'd, and so adorn'd our Tongue?
Men ever had, and ever will have leave,
To coin new words well suited to the age:
Words are like Leaves, some wither every year,
And
