What Homage to the Bard shall Britain pay!
The Bard! that first, from Dryden’s thrice-glean’d Page,
Cull’d his low Efforts to Poetic Rage;
Nor pillag’d only that unrival’d Strain,
But rak’d for Couplets * Chapman and Duck-Lane,
Has sweat each Cent’ry’s Rubbish to explore,
And plunder’d every Dunce that writ before,
Catching half Lines, till the tun’d Verse went round,
Complete, in smooth dull [c] Unity of Sound;
Who, stealing Human, scorn’d Celestial Fire,