style="font-size:15px;"> And far-wide imputations of self-love.'Tis further from me than the worst that reads,
Professing me the worst of all that write;
Yet what, in following one that bravely leads,
The worst may show, let this proof hold the light.
But grant it clear; yet hath detraction got
My blind side in the form my verse puts on;
Much like a dung-hill mastiff, that dares not
Assault the man he barks at, but the stone
He throws at him takes in his eager jaws,
And spoils his teeth because they cannot spoil.
The long verse hath by proof receiv'd applause
Beyond each other number; and the foil,
That squint-ey'd Envy takes, is censur'd plain;
For this long poem asks this length of verse,
Which I myself ingenuously maintain
Too long our shorter authors to rehearse.
And, for our tongue that still is so impair'd [5]
By travelling linguists, I can prove it clear,
That no tongue hath the Muse's utt'rance heir'd
For verse, and that sweet music to the ear
Strook out of rhyme, so naturally as this;
Our monosyllables so kindly fall,
And meet oppos'd in rhyme as they did kiss;
French and Italian most immetrical,
Their many syllables in harsh collision
Fall as they break their necks; their bastard rhymes
Saluting as they justled in transition,
And set our teeth on edge; nor tunes, nor times
Kept in their falls; and, methinks, their long words
Shew in short verse as in a narrow place
Two opposites should meet with two-hand swords
Unwieldily, without or use or grace.
Thus having rid the rubs, and strow'd these flow'rs
In our thrice-sacred Homer's English way,
What rests to make him yet more worthy yours?
To cite more praise of him were mere delay
To your glad searches for what those men found
That gave his praise, past all, so high a place;
Whose virtues were so many, and so crown'd
By all consents divine, that, not to grace
Or add increase to them, the world doth need
Another Homer, but ev'n to rehearse
And number them, they did so much exceed.
Men thought him not a man; but that his verse
Some mere celestial nature did adorn;
And all may well conclude it could not be,
That for the place where any man was born,
So long and mortally could disagree
So many nations as for Homer striv'd,
Unless his spur in them had been divine.
Then end their strife and love him, thus receiv'd,
As born in England; see him over-shine
All other-country poets; and trust this,
That whosesoever Muse dares use her wing
When his Muse flies, she will be truss'd by his,
And show as if a bernacle should spring
Beneath an eagle. In none since was seen
A soul so full of heav'n as earth's in him.
O! if our modern Poesy had been
As lovely as the lady he did limn,
What barbarous worldling, grovelling after gain,
Could use her lovely parts with such rude hate,
As now she suffers under ev'ry swain?
Since then 'tis nought but her abuse and Fate,
That thus impairs her, what is this to her
As she is real, or in natural right?
But since in true Religion men should err
As much as Poesy, should the abuse excite
The like contempt of her divinity,
And that her truth, and right saint-sacred merits,
In most lives breed but rev'rence formally,
What wonder is't if Poesy inherits
Much less observance, being but agent for her,
And singer of her laws, that others say?
Forth then, ye moles, sons of the earth, abhor her,
Keep still on in the dirty vulgar way,
Till dirt receive your souls, to which ye vow,
And with your poison'd spirits bewitch our thrifts.
Ye cannot so despise us as we you;
Not one of you above his mole-hill lifts
His earthy mind, but, as a sort of beasts,
Kept by their guardians, never care to hear
Their manly voices, but when in their fists
They breathe wild whistles, and the beasts' rude ear
Hears their curs barking, then by heaps they fly
Headlong together; so men, beastly giv'n,
The manly soul's voice, sacred Poesy,
Whose hymns the angels ever sing in heav'n,
Contemn and hear not; but when brutish noises,
