The fate of Caesar is a tale too plain
The fickle Gallic taste to entertain;
Their art would have perplex'd, and interwove
The golden arras with gay flowers of love:
We know heaven made him a far greater man
Than any Caesar, in a human plan,
And such we draw him, nor are too refin'd,
To stand affected with what heaven design'd.
To claim attention, and the heart invade,
Shakespeare but wrote the play th' Almighty made.
Our neighbour's stage-art too bare-fac'd betrays,
'Tis great Corneille at every scene we praise;
On nature's surer aid Britannia calls,
None think of Shakespeare till the curtain falls;
Then with a sigh returns our audience home,
From Venice, Egypt, Persia, Greece, or Rome.
France yields not to the glory of our lines,
But manly conduct of our strong designs;
That oft they think more justly we must own,
Not ancient Greece a truer sense has shown:
Greece thought but justly, they think justly too;
We sometimes err by striving more to do.
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