How every claimant, tortured with desire,
Was pale as ashes, or as red as fire;
But loose to fame, the Muse more simply acts,
Rejects all flourish, and relates mere facts.
The judges, as the several parties came,
With temper heard, with judgment weigh'd each claim;
And, in their sentence happily agreed,
In name of both, great Shakspeare thus decreed:-- 1080
If manly sense, if Nature link'd with Art;
If thorough knowledge of the human heart;
If powers of acting vast and unconfined;
If fewest faults with greatest beauties join'd;
If strong expression, and strange powers which lie
Within the magic circle of the eye;
If feelings which few hearts like his can know,
And which no face so well as his can show,
Deserve the preference--Garrick! take the chair;
Nor quit it--till thou place an equal there. 1090

* * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] 'The Rosciad:' for occasion, &c., see Life.

[2] 'Roscius:' Quintus Roscius, a native of Gaul, and the most
celebrated comedian of antiquity. [3] 'Clive:' Robert Lord Clive. See
Macaulay's paper on him.

[4] 'Shuter:' Edward Shuter, a comic actor, who, after various