Caes. 
   Caesar, for his rule, and for so much stuff
   As Fortune puts in his hand, shall dispose it,
   As if his hand had eyes and soul in it,
   With worth and judgment.  Hands, that part with gifts
   Or will restrain their use, without desert,
   Or with a misery numb’d to virtue’s right,
   Work, as they had no soul to govern them,
   And quite reject her; severing their estates
   From human order.  Whosoever can,
   And will not cherish virtue, is no man.
                           [Enter some of the Equestrian Order. 
Eques.  Virgil is now at hand, imperial Caesar.

Caes. 
   Rome’s honour is at hand then.  Fetch a chair,
   And set it on our right hand, where ’tis fit
   Rome’s honour and our own should ever sit. 
   Now he is come out of Campania,
   I doubt not he hath finish’d all his AEneids. 
   Which, like another soul, I long to enjoy. 
   What think you three of Virgil, gentlemen,
   That are of his profession, though rank’d higher;
   Or, Horace, what say’st thou, that art the poorest,
   And likeliest to envy, or to detract

Hor. 
   Caesar speaks after common men in this,
   To make a difference of me for my poorness;
   As if the filth of poverty sunk as deep
   Into a knowing spirit, as the bane
   Of riches doth into an ignorant soul. 
   No, Caesar, they be pathless, moorish minds
   That being once made rotten with the dung
   Of damned riches, ever after sink
   Beneath the steps of any villainy. 
   But knowledge is the nectar that keeps sweet
   A perfect soul, even in this grave of sin;
   And for my soul, it is as free as Caesar’s,
   For what 1 know is due I’ll give to all. 
   He that detracts or envies virtuous merit,
   Is still the covetous and the ignorant spirit.

Caes. 
   Thanks, Horace, for thy free and wholesome sharpness,
   Which pleaseth Caesar more than servile fawns. 
   A flatter’d prince soon turns the prince of fools. 
   And for thy sake, we’ll put no difference more
   Between the great and good for being poor. 
   Say then, loved Horace, thy true thought of Virgil.

Hor. 
   I judge him of a rectified spirit,
   By many revolutions of discourse,
   (In his bright reason’s influence,) refined
   From all the tartarous moods of common men;
   Bearing the nature and similitude
   Of a right heavenly body; most severe
   In fashion and collection of himself;
   And, then, as clear and confident as Jove.

Gal. 
   And yet so chaste and tender is his ear,
   In suffering any syllable to pass,
   That he thinks may become the honour’d name
   Of issue to his so examined self,
   That all the lasting fruits of his full merit,
   In his own poems, he doth still distaste;
   And if his mind’s piece, which he strove to paint,
   Could not with fleshly pencils have her right.