And nature flies him like enchanted ground:

What verse can do, he has performed in this,

Which he presumes the most correct of his;

But spite of all his pride, a secret shame

Invades his breast at Shakespeare's sacred name:

Awed when he hears his godlike Romans rage,

He, in a just despair, would quit the stage;

And to an age less polished, more unskilled,

Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield.

As with the greater dead he dares not strive,