University of Virginia Library


304

Then should you ask me, why I venture o'er
The path which Pope and Gifford trod before;
If not yet sickened, you can still proceed;
Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read.
“But hold!” exclaims a friend,—“here's some neglect:
This—that—and t'other line seem incorrect.”

305

What then? the self-same blunder Pope has got,
And careless Dryden—“Aye, but Pye has not:”—
Indeed!—'tis granted, faith!—but what care I?
Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye.
 

Imitation.

“Cur tamen hoc potius libeat decurrere campo,
Per quem magnus equos Auruncæ flexit alumnus,
Si vacat, et placidi rationem admittitis, edam.”

Juvenal, Sat. I. ll. 19-21.