So well are Racine's meanest persons taught,
But change a sentiment, you make a fault;
Nor dare we charge them with the want of flame:
When we boast more, we own ourselves to blame.
And yet in Shakespeare something still I find,
That makes me less esteem all human kind;
He made one nature, and another found,
Both in his page with master strokes abound:
His witches, fairies, and enchanted isle.
Bid us no longer at our nurses smile;
Of lost historians we almost complain,
Nor think it the creation of his brain.
Who lives, when his Othello's in a trance?
With his great Talbot(62) too he conquer'd France.
Long we may hope brave Talbot's blood will run
In great descendants, Shakespeare has but one;
And him, my lord, permit me not to name,
But in kind silence spare his rival's shame:--
Yet I in vain that author would suppress,
What can't be greater, cannot be made less:
Each reader will defeat my fruitless aim,
And to himself great Agamemnon name.
Pages:
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322