lordship, who, by an undisputed title, are the king of poets, what an extent of power you have, and how lawfully you may exercise it, over the petulant scribblers of this age. As lord chamberlain, I know, you are absolute by your office, in all that belongs to the decency and good manners of the stage. You can banish from thence scurrility and profaneness, and restrain the licentious insolence of poets, and their actors, in all things that shock the public quiet, or the reputation of private persons, under the notion of humour. But I mean not the authority, which is annexed to your office; I speak of that only which is inborn and inherent to your person; what is produced in you by an excellent wit, a masterly and commanding genius over all writers: whereby you are empowered, when you please, to give the final decision of wit; to put your stamp on all that ought to pass for current; and set a brand of reprobation on clipped poetry, and false coin. A shilling dipped in the Bath may go for gold amongst the ignorant, but the sceptres on the guineas show the difference.[8] That your lordship is formed by nature for this supremacy, I could easily prove, (were it not already granted by the world,) from the distinguishing character of your writing: which is so visible to me, that I never could be imposed[Pg 13] on to receive for yours, what was written by any others; or to mistake your genuine poetry for their spurious productions. I can farther add, with truth, (though not without some vanity in saying it,) that in the same paper, written by divers hands, whereof your lordship's was only part, I could separate your gold from their copper; and though I could not give back to every author his own brass, (for there is not the same rule for distinguishing betwixt bad and bad, as betwixt ill and excellently good,) yet I never failed of knowing what was yours, and what was not; and was absolutely certain, that this, or the other part, was positively yours, and could not possibly be written by any other.

[Pg 13]

True it is, that some bad poems, though not all, carry their owners' marks about them. There is some peculiar awkwardness, false grammar, imperfect sense, or, at the least, obscurity; some brand or other on this buttock, or that ear, that it is notorious who are the owners of the cattle, though they should not sign it with their names. But your lordship, on the contrary, is distinguished, not only by the excellency of your thoughts, but by your style and manner of expressing them. A painter, judging of some admirable piece, may affirm, with certainty, that it was of Holbein, or Vandyck; but vulgar designs, and common draughts, are easily mistaken, and misapplied. Thus, by my long study of 

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