That early promise this has more than paid. 
  So bold, yet so judiciously you dare,
  That your least praise is to be regular. 
  Time, place, and action, may with pains be wrought;
  But genius must be born, and never can be taught, 60
  This is your portion; this your native store;
  Heaven, that but once was prodigal before,
  To Shakspeare gave as much; she could not give him more.

    Maintain your post:  that’s all the fame you need;
  For ’tis impossible you should proceed. 
  Already I am worn with cares and age,
  And just abandoning the ungrateful stage: 
  Unprofitably kept at Heaven’s expense,
  I live a rent-charge on his providence: 
  But you, whom every muse and grace adorn, 70
  Whom I foresee to better fortune born,
  Be kind to my remains; and O defend,
  Against your judgment, your departed friend! 
  Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue,
  But shade those laurels which descend to you: 
  And take for tribute what these lines express: 
  You merit more; nor could my love do less.

* * * * *

EPISTLE XI.

TO MR GRANVILLE,[20] ON HIS EXCELLENT TRAGEDY CALLED “HEROIC LOVE.”

  Auspicious poet, wert thou not my friend,
  How could I envy, what I must commend! 
  But since ’tis nature’s law, in love and wit,
  That youth should reign, and withering age submit,
  With less regret those laurels I resign,
  Which, dying on my brows, revive on thine. 
  With better grace an ancient chief may yield
  The long-contended honours of the field,
  Than venture all his fortune at a cast,
  And fight, like Hannibal, to lose at last. 10
  Young princes, obstinate to win the prize,
  Though yearly beaten, yearly yet they rise: 
  Old monarchs, though successful, still in doubt,
  Catch at a peace, and wisely turn devout. 
  Thine be the laurel, then; thy blooming age
  Can best, if any can, support the stage;
  Which so declines, that shortly we may see
  Players and plays reduced to second infancy. 
  Sharp to the world, but thoughtless of renown,
  They plot not on the stage, but on the town, 20
  And, in despair, their empty pit to fill,
  Set up some foreign monster in a bill. 
  Thus they jog on, still tricking, never thriving,
  And murdering plays, which they miscall reviving. 
  Our sense is nonsense, through their pipes convey’d: 
  Scarce can a poet know the play he made;
  ’Tis so disguised in death; nor thinks ’tis he
  That suffers in the mangled tragedy. 
  Thus Itys first was kill’d, and after dress’d
  For his own sire, the chief invited guest. 30
  I say not this of thy successful scenes,