Adapted Speech, and just Expressions move
Our various Passions, Pity, Rage and Love.
I weep to hear fond _Anthony_ complain
In _Shakespear's_ Fancy, but in _Virgil's_ Strain.

Tho' for the Comick, others we prefer,
Himself[5] the Judge; nor do's his Judgment Err.
But Comedy, 'tis Thought, can never claim
The sounding Title of a Poem's Name.
For Raillery, and what creates a Smile
Betrays no lofty Genius, nor a Style.
That _Heav'nly Heat_ refuses to be seen
In a Town-Character and Comick Mien.

[5] See Preface to _Aurengzebe_.

If we would do him right, we must produce
The _Sophoclean Buskin_; when his Muse
With her loud Accents fills the list'ning Ear,
And _Peals_ applauding shake the Theater.

They fondly seek, Great Name, to blast thy Praise,
Who think that Foreign Thanks produc'd thy Bays.
Is he oblig'd to _France_, who draws from thence
By _English_ Energy, their Captive Sense?
Tho' _Edward_ and fam'd _Henry_ Warr'd in vain,
Subduing what they could not long retain:
Yet now beyond our Arms the Muse prevails,
And Poets Conquer where the Hero fails.