TO MY DEAR FRIEND MR CONGREVE, ON HIS COMEDY CALLED “THE DOUBLE-DEALER.”

  Well, then, the promised hour is come at last,
  The present age of wit obscures the past: 
  Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ,
  Conquering with force of arms, and dint of wit: 
  Theirs was the giant race, before the flood;
  And thus, when Charles return’d, our empire stood. 
  Like Janus he the stubborn soil manured,
  With rules of husbandry the rankness cured;
  Tamed us to manners, when the stage was rude;
  And boisterous English wit with art endued. 10
  Our age was cultivated thus at length;
  But what we gain’d in skill we lost in strength. 
  Our builders were with want of genius cursed;
  The second temple was not like the first: 
  Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length;
  Our beauties equal, but excel our strength. 
  Firm Doric pillars found your solid base: 
  The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space: 
  Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace. 
  In easy dialogue is Fletcher’s praise; 20
  He moved the mind, but had not power to raise. 
  Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please;
  Yet, doubling Fletcher’s force, he wants his ease. 
  In differing talents both adorn’d their age;
  One for the study, the other for the stage. 
  But both to Congreve justly shall submit—­
  One match’d in judgment, both o’ermatch’d in wit. 
  In him all beauties of this age we see,
  Etherege’s courtship, Southerne’s purity,
  The satire, wit, and strength of manly Wycherly. 30
  All this in blooming youth you have achieved: 
  Nor are your foil’d contemporaries grieved. 
  So much the sweetness of your manners move,
  We cannot envy you, because we love. 
  Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw
  A beardless consul made against the law,
  And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome;
  Though he with Hannibal was overcome. 
  Thus old Romano bow’d to Raphael’s fame,
  And scholar to the youth he taught became. 40

    O that your brows my laurel had sustain’d! 
  Well had I been deposed, if you had reign’d: 
  The father had descended for the son;
  For only you are lineal to the throne. 
  Thus, when the state one Edward did depose,
  A greater Edward in his room arose: 
  But now, not I, but poetry is cursed;
  For Tom the second reigns like Tom the first. 
  But let them not mistake my patron’s part,
  Nor call his charity their own desert. 50
  Yet this I prophesy:  Thou shalt be seen
  (Though with some short parenthesis between)
  High on the throne of wit, and, seated there,
  Not mine, that’s little, but thy laurel wear. 
  Thy first attempt an early promise made;