My praise is insignificant, for I
Am not grown old enough in poetry;
Nor is my name yet up enough t'engage
Th'opinion of this superstitious age.
But if I say, I like what you have writ,
Some other, that believes himself a Wit,
May differ from me in Opinion. So
To find the truth, we must to poling go.
Now in this envy'ous and ill-natur'd time,
Verse is a scandal, and to print a crime
In this half-witted and ungrateful Town
The most (that is the worst) will cry thee down
For those three hainous crimes, Truth, Wit, and Verse;
And swear it is thy Vice to meddle with theirs
So I'll suspend Encomiums, and transmit
Those to thy book, which praises thee and it:
For Poets to praise Poets is as bad,
As if one mad-man said another's mad.
And (to say truth) men did the Muse suborn,
To claw a friend, or else to serve a turn;
Good Verse and bad were prais'd with equal wit
Just as the praiser on the humour hit.
Encomiums like several Sermons grew,
All car'd how well to speak, but none how true
The Knave and Dunce with both of us did speed
As th'Poets humor'd, or the Levite fee'd.
This made wise Readers all our votes despise,
And their contempt made future writers wise
To praise friends wits is out of fashion grown,
We only now break jests to shew our own.