But if he lags his subject is to blame. 
  Rough weary roads thro’ barren wilds he tried,
  Yet still he marches with true Roman pride: 
  Sometimes a meteor, gorgeous, rapid, bright, 145
  He streams athwart the philosophic night. 
  Find you in Horace no insipid Odes?—­
  He dar’d to tell us Homer sometimes nods;
  And but for such a aide’s hardy skill
  Homer might slumber unsuspected still. 150

  [Footnote A:  A poem of Tibullus’s in hexameter verse; as yawning and
  insipid as his elegies are tender and natural.]

    Tasteless, implicit, indolent and tame,
  At second-hand we chiefly praise or blame. 
  Hence ’tis, for else one knows not why nor how,
  Some authors flourish for a year or two: 
  For many some, more wond’rous still to tell; 155
  Farquhar yet lingers on the brink of hell. 
  Of solid merit others pine unknown; }
  At first, tho’[A] Carlos swimmingly went down, }
  Poor Belvidera fail’d to melt the town. }
  Sunk in dead night the giant Milton lay 160
  ’Till Sommer’s hand produc’d him to the day. 
  But, thanks to heav’n and Addison’s good grace
  Now ev’ry fop is charm’d with Chevy Chace.

[Footnote A:  Don Carlos, a tragedy of Otway’s, now long and justly forgotten, went off with great applause; while his Orphan, a somewhat better performance, and what is yet more strange, his Venice Preserved, according to the theatrical anecdotes of those times, met with a very cold reception.]

    Specious and sage, the sovereign of the flock
  Led to the downs, or from the wave-worn rock 165
  Reluctant hurl’d, the tame implicit train
  Or crop the downs, or headlong seek the main. 
  As blindly we our solemn leaders follow,
  And good, and bad, and execrable swallow.

    Pray, on the first throng’d evening of a play 170
  That wears the[A] facies hippocratica,
  Strong lines of death, signs dire of reprobation;
  Have you not seen the angel of salvation
  Appear sublime; with wise and solemn rap
  To teach the doubtful rabble where to clap?—­ 175
  The rabble knows not where our dramas shine;
  But where the cane goes pat—­by G—­ that’s fine!

  [Footnote A:  The appearance of the face in the last stage
  of a consumption, as it is described by Hippocrates.]

    Judge for yourself; nor wait with timid phlegm
  Till some illustrious pedant hum or hem. 179
  The lords who starv’d old Ben were learn’dly fond
  Of Chaucer, whom with bungling toil they conn’d,
  Their sons, whose ears bold Milton could not seize, }
  Would laugh o’er Ben like mad, and snuff and sneeze, }
  And swear, and seem as tickled as you please. }