Power of inventing terms may be allowed,
Which Chaucer and his age ne'er understood;
Provided always, as 'twas said before,
We seldom, and discreetly use that power.
Words new and foreign may be best brought in,
If borrowed from a language near akin.
Why should the peevish critics now forbid
To Lee and Dryden, what was not denied
To Shakespeare, Ben, and Fletcher heretofore,
For which they praise, and commendation bore?
If Spenser's Muse be justly so adored
For that rich copiousness wherewith he stored
Our native tongue, for God's sake why should I
Straight be thought arrogant, if modestly
I claim and use the self-same liberty?
This the just right of poets ever was,
And will be still, to coin what words they please,
Well fitted to the present age and place.
Words with the leaves of trees a semblance hold
In this respect, where every year the old
Fall off, and new ones in their places grow;
Death is the fate of all things here below:
Nature herself by art has changes felt,
The Tangier mole (by our great monarch built)
Like a vast bulwark in the ocean set,
From pirates and from storms defends our fleet;
Fens every day are drained, and men now plough,
And sow, and reap, where they before might row;
And rivers have been taught by Middleton[1]
From their old course within new banks to run,
And pay their useful tribute to the town.
- ↑ Sir Hugh Middleton, goldsmith, and citizen of London. He procured an Act of Parliament, in 1608, to bring a supply of water to the City from the streams of Middlesex and Hertfordshire. He nearly ruined himself by the undertaking, the Corporation refusing to assist him; but prevailing at last upon the King to take a share in the concern, he completed his work in 1613, when the reservoir at Islington was opened with great ceremony. The value of a share in the New
