Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/181

Or is it said that poetry's like wine
Which age, we know, will mellow and refine?
Well, let me grant the parallel, and ask
How many years a work must be in cask.
A bard who died a hundred years ago,
With whom should he be reckoned, I would know?
The priceless early or the worthless late?
Come, draw a line which may preclude debate.
"The bard who makes his century up has stood
The test: we call him sterling, old, and good."
Well, here's a poet now, whose dying day
Fell one month later, or a twelvemonth, say:
Whom does he count with? with the old, or them
Whom we and future times alike contemn?
"Aye, call him old, by favour of the court,
Who falls a month, or e'en a twelvemonth short."
Thanks for the kind permission! I go on,
And pull out years, like horse-hairs, one by one,
While all forlorn the baffled critic stands,
Fumbling a naked stump between his hands,
Who looks for worth in registers, and knows
No inspiration but what death bestows.
Ennius, the stout and wise, in critic phrase
The analogue of Homer in these days,
Enjoys his ease, nor cares how he redeems
The gorgeous promise of his peacock dreams.
Who reads not Nævius? still he lives enshrined
A household god in every Roman mind.
So as we reckon o'er the heroic band
We call Pacuvius learned, Accius grand;