ABSTRACT
Thou art no Off-spring of an idle Tale, Like Homer's Deity. But since that fame } All Ages gave him, is thy proper claim; Accept the Veneration and the Name. Fulfill'd in thee is what the Ancients feign, And Pallas is the issue of thy Brain, As th' Muses of thy Wit: when safely laid, Of thy first-sheets their swathing Cloaths were made. Others there are would thy fair Off-spring claim; Theirs (by their want of heed) o're-laid or lame. But when it comes to Tryal they resign; Justice decrees the Living Child for thine. The Muses Empire bears so great a Name, Thou hast two Rivals in thy Lady-Fame; Waller and Donne. You are the only three Who justly can pretend that Monarchy. Donne's Judgment, Fancy, Humour, and his Wit, Strong, searching, happy, and before ne're hit, Gives him a fair pretence to climb the Throne;
(ii)
But Waller rather stops than plucks him down. Rich he appears; his courtly Vesture grac'd With golden Similes all over lac'd. But Cowley (like the Infant of the Sun) Out-glitters Waller, and ev'n dazzles Donne. Both of' em, to Augustus, leave the Field; Like Lepidus and Anthony, they yield. He triumphs! their triumv'racy of Rays Unite in Cowley and compound his blaze.
