Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 2.djvu/19

 who are better qualified than any Man I know to decide this Controversie. You come, my Lord, instructed in the Cause, and needed not that I shou'd open it. Your Essay of Poetry, which was publish'd without a Name, and of which I was not honour'd with the Confidence, I read over and over with much delight, and as much instruction: and, without flattering you, or making my self more Moral than I am, not without some Envy. I was loath to be inform'd how an Epick Poem shou'd be written, or how a Tragedy shou'd be contriv'd and manag'd in better Verse, and with more Judgment, than I cou'd teach others. A Native of Parnassus, and bred up in the Studies of its Fundamental Laws, may receive new Lights from his Contemporaries, but tis a grudging kind of Praise which he gives his Benefactors. He is more oblig'd than he is willing to acknowledge: there is a tincture of Malice in his Commendations. For where I own I am taught, I confess my want of Knowledge. A Judge upon the Bench, may, out of good Nature, or at least Interest, encourage the Pleadings of a puny Councellor, but he does not willingly commend his Brother Serjeant at the Bar; especially when he controuls his Law, and exposes that Ignorance which is made Sacred by his Place. I gave the unknown Author his due Commendation, I must confess: But who can answer for me, and for the rest of the Poets, who heard me read the Poem, whether we shou'd not have been better pleas'd, to have seen our own Names at the bottom of the Title-page? Perhaps we commended it the more, that we might seem to be above the Censure. We are naturally displeas'd with an unknown Critick, as the Ladies are with a Lampooner, because we are bitten in the dark, and know not where to fasten our Revenge. But great Excellencies will work their way through all sorts of Opposition. I