Classic Poem

Whate'er your predecessors taught us,
I have a great esteem for Plautus;
And think your boys may gather there-hence
More wit and humour than from Terence.
But as to comic Aristophanes,
The rogue's too bawdy and too prophane is.
I went in vain to look for Eupolis,
Down in the Strand just where the new pole is,
For I can tell you one thing, that I can,
You will not find it in the Vatican.
He and Cratinus used, as Horace says,
To take his greatest grandees for asses.
Poets, in those days, used to venture high,
But these are lost full many a century.

Thus you may see, dear friend, ex pede hence
My judgement of the old comedians.

Proceed to tragics, first Euripides
(An author, where I sometimes dip a-days)
Is rightly censured by the Stagirite,
Who says, his numbers do not fadge a-right.
A friend of mine, that author despises
So much, he swears the very best piece is,
For aught he knows, as bad as Thespis's.
And that a woman, in those tragedies
Commonly speaking, but a sad jade is.
At least, I'm well assured, that no folk lays
The weight on him, they do on Sophocles.
But above all I prefer Aeschylus,
Whose moving touches, when they please, kill us.

And now I find my muse but ill able
To hold out longer in trisyllable.
I chose these rhymes out, for their difficulty.
Will you return as hard ones, if I call t'ye?