Why should you teize one for what secret cause
  One doats on Horace, or on Hudibras? 
  ’Tis cruel, Sir, ’tis needless, to endeavour
  To teach a sot of Taste he knows no flavour, 90
  To disunite I neither wish nor hope
  A stubborn blockhead from his fav’rite fop. 
  Yes—­fop I say, were Maro’s self before ’em: 
  For Maro’s self grows dull as they pore o’er him.

    But hear their raptures o’er some specious rhime
  Dub’d by the musk’d and greasy mob sublime. 96
  For spleen’s dear sake hear how a coxcomb prates
  As clam’rous o’er his joys as fifty cats;
  "Music has charms to sooth a savage breast,
  To soften rocks, and oaks"—­and all the rest:  100
  "I’ve heard"—­Bless these long ears!—­“Heav’ns what a strain! 
  Good God!  What thunders burst in this Campaign! 
  Hark Waller warbles!  Ah! how sweetly killing! 
  Then that inimitable Splendid Shilling! 
  Rowe breathes all Shakespear here!—­That ode of Prior 105
  Is Spencer quite! egad his very fire!—­
  As like”—­Yes faith! as gum-flowers to the rose,
  Or as to Claret flat Minorca’s dose;
  As like as (if I am not grosly wrong)
  Erle Robert’s Mice to aught e’er Chaucer sung. 110

    Read boldly, and unprejudic’d peruse
  Each fav’rite modern, ev’n each ancient muse. 
  With all the comic salt and tragic rage
  The great stupendous genius of our stage,
  Boast of our island, pride of human-kind, 115
  Had faults to which the boxes are not blind. 
  His frailties are to ev’ry gossip known: 
  Yet Milton’s pedantries not shock the town. 
  Ne’er be the dupe of Names, however high;
  For some outlive good parts, some misapply. 120
  Each elegant Spectator you admire;
  But must you therefore swear by Cato’s fire? 
  Masques for the court, and oft a clumsey jest,
  Disgrac’d the muse that wrought the Alchemist. 
  “But to the ancients.”—­Faith!  I am not clear, 125
  For all the smooth round type of Elzevir,
  That every work which lasts in prose or song,
  Two thousand years, deserves to last so long. 
  For not to mention some eternal blades
  Known only now in th’ academic shades, 130
  (Those sacred groves where raptur’d spirits stray,
  And in word-hunting waste the live-long day)
  Ancients whom none but curious critics scan,
  Do, read[A] Messala’s praises if you can. 
  Ah! who but feels the sweet contagious smart 135
  While soft Tibullus pours his tender heart? 
  With him the Loves and Muses melt in tears;
  But not a word of some hexameters. 
  “You grow so squeamish and so dev’lish dry,
  You’ll call Lucretius vapid next.”  Not I. 140
  Some find him tedious, others think him lame: