Discourse on Criticism and of PoetryFrom Poems On Several Occasions (1707)
fatned with Hostile Blood. O Heavenly Patron of the needy Muse! Whose powerful Name can nobler heat infuse. When You Nassau's bright Actions dar'd to see, You was the Eagle, and Apollo He. But when He read You, and Your Value knew, He was the Eagle, and Apollo You. Both spoke the Bird in her Æthereal height, The Majesty was His, and Thine the Flight. Both did Apollo in His Glory shew, The Silver Harp was Thine, and His the Bow,

    So may Pierian Clio cease to fear, When Honour deigns to sing, and Majesty to hear! So may she favour'd live, and always please Our Dorset's, and Judicious Normanby's!

    Nor does the Coronet alone defend The Muses Cause: The Miter is Her Friend. Can we forget how Damon's lofty Tongue Shook the glad Mountains? how the Valleys rung When Rochester's Seraphick Shepherd Sung. How Mars and Pallas wept to see the Day When Athens by a Plague dispeopled lay. What Learning perish'd, and what Lives it cost! Sung with more Spirit than all Athens lost. Nor can the Miter now conceal the Bays, For still we view the Sacred Poet's praise. So tho' Eridanus becomes a Star Exalted to the Skies, and shines afar, Below he loses nothing but his Name, Still faithful to his Banks, his Stream's the same.

    But smile, my Muse, once more upon my Song, Let Creech be numbred with the Sacred Throng. Whose daring Muse could with Manilius fly, And, like an Atlas, shoulder up the Sky. He's mounted, where no vulgar Eye can trace His Wondrous footsteps and mysterious race. See, how He walks above in mighty strains, And wanders o'er the wide Ethereal Plains! He sings what Harmony the Spheres obey, In Verse more tuneful, and more sweet than they.

    'Tis cause of Triumph, when Rome's Genius shinesA. Lucretius and Manilius. In nervous English, and well-worded Lines. Two Famous Latins[A] our bright Tongue adorn, And a new Virgil[B]B. Mr. Dryden's Virgil. is in England born. An Æneid to translate, and make a new, Are Tasks of equal Labour to pursue.

A. Lucretius and Manilius.

B. Mr. Dryden's Virgil.

    For tho' th' Invention of a Godlike Mind Excels the Works of Nature, and Mankind; Yet a well-languag'd Version will require An equal Genius, and as strong a Fire. These claim at once our Study and our Praise, Fam'd for the Dignity of Sense and Phrase. These gainful to the Stationer, shall stand At Paul's or Cornhill, Fleetstreet or the Strand. Shall 
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