This play, ye critics, shall your fury stand,
Adorn’d and rescuéd by a faultless hand.”
Here are two of the shining master-strokes:
“As who should say, I am, sir, an oracle”;
“Still quiring to the blue-eyed cherubim”!
And this was Pope’s “Granville the polite,” the “Muses’ glory and delight” of Young, who informs us, moreover—he had certainly a very pretty taste and boundless generosity in praising a person of quality—that, though long may we hope brave Talbot’s blood will run In great descendants, Shakspere has but one, And him my Lord (he begs will) permit him not to name, But in kind silence spare his rival’s shame. The generous reserve is vain, however. Each reader will defeat his useless aim, And to himself
great Agamemnon name. Great Agamemnon is Granville:
“Europe sheathed the sword
When this great man was first saluted lord,”
apparently that he might give his whole time to filling Shakspere with shining new master-strokes like those above.