EPISTLE I. TO AUGUSTUS. WHILE you, great patron of mankind! sustain The balanc'd world, and open all the main Your country, chief in arms abroad defend, Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, 9 ; Oppress'd Oppress'd we feel the beam directly beat, Just in one instance, be it yet confest 25 30 Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old; 35 Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote, One likes no language but the Fairy Queen; He swears the muses met him at the Devil. Tho' justly Greece her eldest sons admires, Why should not we be wiser than our sires? In VER. 40. Christ's Kirk of the Green;] A ballad made by James the First, King of Scotland. VIR. 42. met him at the Devil.] The Devil Tavern, where Ben Jonson held his poetical club. 12 In ev'ry public virtue we excel; We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well, "Who lasts a century can have no flaw, "I hold that wit a classic, good in law." Suppose he wants a year, will you, compound? And shall we deem him ancient, right and sound, Or damn to all eternity at once, At ninety-nine, a modern and a dunce? "We shall not quarrel for a year or two; By courtesy of England, he may do.” Then, by the rule that made the horse-tail bare, I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair, 45 50 55 60 And melt down ancients like a heap of snow : 65 While you, to measure merits, look in Stowe, And estimating authors by the year, Bestow a garland only on a bier. Shakespear (whom you and ev'ry play-house bill Style the divine, the matchless, what you will,) For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight, And grew immortal in his own despight. 70 Ben Ben, old and poor, as little seem'd to heed 75 80 "Yet surely, surely, these were famous men! "What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben? "In all debates where critics bear a part, "Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson's art, "Of Shakespear's nature, and of Cowley's wit; "How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher " writ ; "How Shadwell hasty, Wycherley was slow; Why then, I say, the public is a fool. But let them own, that greater faults than we 85 90 95 Spenser VER. 91. Gammer Gurton] A piece of very low humour, one of the first printed plays in English, and therefore much valued by some antiquaries. Written by J. Still, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells. Spenser himself affects the obsolete, And Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman feet : And God the Father turns a school-divine. In the dry desert of a thousand lines, ΙΟΙ 105 Or lengthen'd thought that gleams through many a Has sanctify'd whole poems for an age. I lose my patience, and I own it too, When works are censur'd, not as bad but new; While if our elders break all reason's laws, These fools demand not pardon, but applause. On Avon's bank, where flow'rs eternal blow, If I but ask, if any weed can grow? One tragic sentence if I dare deride Which Betterton's grave action dignify'd, [page, Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims, (Tho' but, perhaps, a muster-roll of names,) X 2 115 120 How |