In vain you would endeavour to perswade,
That all our Rites were in those Archives laid:
That Poetry must ever stand unmov'd,
The only Art Experience ha'nt improv'd.
But grant all this were to Religion grown,
Sure they concern no Countrys but their own:
For let the Æneid pass through other hands,
And Virgils self a third-rate Poet stands.
Unfit to reach the heights that he has flown,
We wisely to our level bring him down.
Himself had writ less sweet, and less sublime
In any other tongue or other time.
That all our Rites were in those Archives laid:
That Poetry must ever stand unmov'd,
The only Art Experience ha'nt improv'd.
But grant all this were to Religion grown,
Sure they concern no Countrys but their own:
For let the Æneid pass through other hands,
And Virgils self a third-rate Poet stands.
Unfit to reach the heights that he has flown,
We wisely to our level bring him down.
Himself had writ less sweet, and less sublime
In any other tongue or other time.
And now, my Lord, on this account I grieve,
To think how different from your self you'l live.
When this inimitable peice is shown,
In Languages and Empires yet unknown.
It will be Learning then to know and hear
Not only what you wrote, but what you were.
To think how different from your self you'l live.
When this inimitable peice is shown,
In Languages and Empires yet unknown.
It will be Learning then to know and hear
Not only what you wrote, but what you were.
