uld have perplex'd, and interwove
The golden arras with gay flowers of love:
We know heaven made him a far greater man
Than any Caesar, in a human plan,
And such we draw him, nor are too refin'd,
To stand affected with what heaven design'd.
To claim attention, and the heart invade,
Shakespeare but wrote the play th' Almighty made.
Our neighbour's stage-art too bare-fac'd betrays,
'Tis great Corneille at every scene we praise;
On nature's surer aid Britannia calls,
None think of Shakespeare till the curtain falls;
Then with a sigh returns our audience home,
From Venice, Egypt, Persia, Greece, or Rome.
France yields not to the glory of our lines,
But manly conduct of our strong designs;
That oft they think more justly we must own,
Not ancient Greece a truer sense has shown:
Greece thought but justly, they think justly too;
We sometimes err by striving more to do.
So well are Racine's meanest persons taught,
But change a sentiment, you make a fault;
Nor dare we charge them with the want of flame:
When we boast more, we own ourselves to blame.
And yet in Shakespeare something still I find,
That makes me less esteem all human kind;
He made one nature, and another found,
Both in his page with master strokes abound:
His witches, fairies, and enchanted isle.
Bid us no longer at our nurses smile;
Of lost historians we almost complain,
Nor think it the creation of his brain.
Who lives, when his Othello's in a trance?
With his great Talbot(62) too he conquer'd France.
Long we may hope brave Talbot's blood will run
In great descendants, Shakespeare has but one;
And him, my lord, permit me not to name,
But in kind silence spare his rival's shame:--
Yet I in vain that author would suppress,
What can't be greater, cannot be made less:
Each reader will defeat my fruitless aim,
And to himself great Agamemnon name.
Should Shakespeare rise unbless'd with Talbot's smile,
E'en Shakespeare's self would curse this barren isle:
But if that reigning star propitious shine,
And kindly mix his gentle rays with thine;
E'en I, by far the meanest of your age,
Shall not repent my passion for the stage.
Thus did the will almighty disallow,
No human force could pluck the golden bough,
Which left the tree with ease at Jove's command,
And spar'd the labour of the weakest hand.
Auspicious fate! that gives me leave to write
T