University of Virginia Library

On Mr. Dryden's Play, The Conquest of GRANADA.

Th'applause I gave among the foolish Croud,
Was not distinguish'd, though I clap'd aloud:
Or, if it had, my judgment had been hid:
I clap'd for Company as others did:
Thence may be told the fortune of your Play,
Its goodness must be try'd another way:
Let's judge it then, and, if we've any skill,
Commend what's good, though we commend it ill:
There will be Praise enough: yet not so much,
As if the world had never any such:
Ben Johnson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Shakespear, are
As well as you, to have a Poets share.
You who write after, have besides, this Curse,
You must write better, or, you else write worse:
To equal only what was writ before,
Seems stoln or borrow'd from the former store:
Though blind as Homer all the Antients be,
'Tis on their shoulders like the Lame we see.
Then, not to flatter th'Age, nor flatter you,
(Praises though less, are greater when they'r true)
You'r equal to the best, outdone by you;
Who had outdone themselves, had they liv'd now.