Page:An Essay on Poetry - Sheffield (1709).pdf/13

 Must needs succeed, for who can chuse but pity A dying Hero miserably witty? But oh, the Dialogues, where jest, and mock Is held up like a Rest at Shittle-cock! Or else like Bells, eternally they chime, They sigh in Simile, and die in Rhime. What Things are these who would be, Poets thought, By Nature not inspir'd, nor Learning taught? Some Wit they have, and therefore may deserve A better Course than this by which they starve; But to write Plays! why, 'tis a bold pretence To Judgment, Breeding, Wit and Eloquence; Nay more; for they must Look within to find Those secret Turns of Nature in the Mind; Without this part in vain would be the whole, And but a Body all without a Soul: All this together yet is but a part Of Dialogue, that great and powerful Art, Now almost lost, which the old Grecians knew, From whence the Romans Fainter Copies drew, Scarce comprehended since but by a few: Plato and Lucian are the best Remains Of all the Wonders which this Art contains; Yet to our selves, we Justice must allow, Shakespear and Fletcher are the Wonders now: Consider them, and read them o'er and o'er, Go see them play'd, then read them as before, For