Of slower nature, got the start.
But both in him so equal are,
None knows which bears the happiest share.
To him no author was unknown,
Yet what he wrote was all his own:
He melted not the ancient gold,
Nor, with Ben Johnson, did make bold.
To plunder all the Roman stores
Of poets and of orators.
Horace's wit, and Virgil's state,
He did not steal, but emulate;
And he would like to them appear,
Their garb, but not their cloaths did wear.
He not from Rome alone but Greece,
Like Johnson, brought the golden fleece.
And a stiff gale, (as Flaccus sings)
The Theban swan extends his wings,
When thro' th' æthereal clouds he flies,
To the same pitch our swan doth rise:
Old Pindar's flights by him new-reach'd,
When on that gale, his wings are stretch'd.


[Footnote 1: Ath. Oxon. vol. ii.]

[Footnote 2: Wood.]

[Footnote 3: In the preface to 2d edition, 1736, 4to.]

* * * * *