net:

Perched on the eagle's towering wing,
The lowly linnet loves to sing.

2. Approach there--Ay, you kite!--
--Now, gods and devils!
Authority melts from me: of late, when I cried ho!
Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth
And cry, your will.--Have you no ears?
I am Antony yet.--

The same idea, which bursts from Shakespeare's Antony in a
transport of passion, is used by Dryden's hero. The one is goaded
by the painful feeling of lost power; to the other, absorbed in his
sentimental distresses, it only occurs as a subject of melancholy,
but not of agitating reflection.

3. Imitated, or rather copied, from Shakespeare.

_Don John._ I came hither to tell you, and circumstances shortened
(for she hath been too long a talking of) the lady is disloyal.

_Claudia._ Who? Hero?

_Don John._ Even she; Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero.

EPILOGUE.

Poets, like disputants, when reasons fail,
Have one sure refuge left--and that's to rail.
Fop, coxcomb, fool, are thundered through the pit;
And this is all their equipage of wit.
We wonder how the devil this difference grows,
Betwixt our fools in verse, and yours in prose:
For, 'faith, the quarrel rightly understood,
'Tis civil war with their own flesh and blood.
The thread-bare author hates the gaudy coat;
And swears at the gilt coach, but swears a-foot;
For 'tis observed of every scribbling man,
He grows a fop as fast as e'er he can;
Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass,
If pink and purple best become his face.
For our poor wretch, he neither rails nor prays;
Nor likes your wit just as you like his plays;
He has not yet so much of Mr Bayes.
He does his best; and if he cannot please,
Would quietly sue out his _writ of ease_.
Yet, if he might his own grand jury call,
By the fair sex he begs to stand or fall.
Let Caesar's power the men's ambition move,
But grace you him, who lost the world for love!
Yet if some antiquated lady say,
The last age is not copied in his play;
Heaven help the man who for that face must drudge,
Which only has the wrinkles of a judge.
Let not the young and beauteous join with those;
For should you raise such numerous hosts of foes,
Young wits and sparks he to his aid must call;
'Tis more than one man's work to please you all.

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