ABSTRACT
Panegyrick: Where good Nature, the most God-like Commendation of a Man, is only attributed to your Person, and deny'd to your W ritings: for they are every where so full of Candour, that like Horace, you only expose the Follies of Men, without Arraigning their Vices; and in this excel him, That You add that pointedness of Thought, which is visibly wanting in our Great Roman. There is more of Salt in all your Verses, than I have seen in any of the Moderns, or even of the Ancients: But you have been sparing of the Gaul; by which means you have pleas'd all Readers, and offended none. Donn alone, of all our Countrymen, had your Talent; but was not happy enough to arrive at your Versification. And were he Translated into Numbers, and English, he wou'd yet be wanting in the Dignity of Expression. That which is the prime Vertue, and chief Ornament of Virgil, which distinguishes him from the rest of Writers, is so conspicuous in your Verses, that it casts a shadow on all your Contemporaries; we cannot be seen, or but obscurely, while you are present. You equal Donn, in the Variety, Multiplicity, and Choice of Thoughts; you excel him in the Manner, and the Words. I Read you both, with the same Admiration, but not with the same Delight. He affects the Metaphysicks, not only in his Satires, but in his Amorous Verses, where Nature only shou'd reign; and perplexes the Minds of the Fair Sex with nice Speculations of Philosophy, when he shou'd ingage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of Love. In this (ifI may be pardon'd for so bold a truth) Mr Cowley has Copy'd him to a fault; so great a one, in my Opinion, that it throws his Mistress infinitely below his Pindariques, and his latter Compositions; which are undoubtedly the best of his Poems, and the most Correct. For my own part, I must avow it freely to the World, that I never attempted any thing in Satire, wherein I have not study'd your Writings as the most perfect Model. ...
