To Dr. Sheridan.

Whate'er your predecessors taught us,     I have a great esteem for Plautus;     And think your boys may gather there-hence     More wit and humour than from Terence;     But as to comic Aristophanes,     The rogue too vicious and too profane is.     I went in vain to look for Eupolis     Down in the Strand,[1] just where the New Pole[2] is;     For I can tell you one thing, that I can,     You will not find it in the Vatican.     He and Cratinus used, as Horace says,     To take his greatest grandees for asses.     Poets, in those days, used to venture high;     But these are lost full many a century.     Thus you may see, dear friend, ex pede hence,     My judgment of the old comedians.         Proceed to tragics: first Euripides     (An author where I sometimes dip a-days)     Is rightly censured by the Stagirite,     Who says, his numbers do not fadge aright.     A friend of mine that author despises     So much he swears the very best piece is,     For aught he knows, as bad as Thespis's;     And that a woman in these tragedies,     Commonly speaking, but a sad jade is.     At least I'm well assured, that no folk lays     The weight on him they do on Sophocles.     But, above all, I prefer Eschylus,     Whose moving touches, when they please, kill us.         And now I find my Muse but ill able,     To hold out longer in trissyllable.     I chose those rhymes out for their difficulty;     Will you return as hard ones if I call t'ye?