TRI. Your verses have beauties unequalled by any others.
VAD. Venus and the Graces reign in all yours.
TRI. You have an easy style, and a fine choice of words.
VAD. In all your writings one finds _ithos_ and _pathos_.
TRI. We have seen some eclogues of your composition which surpass in sweetness those of Theocritus and Virgil.
VAD. Your odes have a noble, gallant, and tender manner, which leaves Horace far behind.
TRI. Is there anything more lovely than your canzonets?
VAD. Is there anything equal to the sonnets you write?
TRI. Is there anything more charming than your little rondeaus?
VAD. Anything so full of wit as your madrigals?
TRI. You are particularly admirable in the ballad.
VAD. And in _bouts-rimés_ I think you adorable.
TRI. If France could appreciate your value--
VAD. If the age could render justice to a lofty genius--
TRI. You would ride in the streets in a gilt coach.
VAD. We should see the public erect statues to you. Hem...(_to_ TRISSOTIN). It is a ballad; and I wish you frankly to....
TRI. (_to_ VADIUS). Have you heard a certain little sonnet upon the Princess Urania's fever?
VAD. No, I do not; but I know very well that, to tell him the truth, his sonnet is good for nothing.
TRI. Yet a great many people think it admirable.
VAD. It does not prevent it from being wretched; and if you had read it, you would think like me.
TRI. I know that I should differ from you altogether, and that few people are able to write such a sonnet.
VAD. Heaven forbid that I should ever write one so bad!
TRI. I maintain that a better one cannot be made, and my reason is that I am the author of it.
VAD. I cannot understand how the thing can have happened.
TRI. It is unfortunate that I had not the power of pleasing you.
VAD. My mind must have wandered during the reading, or else the reader spoilt the sonnet; but let us leave that subject, and come to my ballad.
TRI. The ballad is, to my mind, but an insipid thing; it is no longer the fashion, and savours of ancient times.
VAD. Yet a ballad has charms for many people.
TRI. It does not prevent me from thinking it unpleasant.
TRI. It has wonderful attractions for pedants.
VAD. Yet we see that it does not please you.
TRI. You stupidly give your qualities to others.