Classic Poem

Latin is now of equal use become
To Englishmen, as was the Greek to Rome:
It guides our language, nothing is expressed
Graceful or true but by the Roman test.
Grammar's the base on which this work must stand,
Not to be laid by every vulgar hand.
Let then our reverend master be adored,
And all our grateful pens his praise record.
I dare not name myself, yet what I am
From his examples and his precepts came.
Our noblest wits from his instructive care
Have graced the senate, and have judged the bar;
But above all, the Muses' sacred band
Have been transplanted from his Eden land.
Nor thou the least, whose judgement has refined
And milled that money which our master coined.
Grammar, which was before th' ungrateful part
Of our green years, is made a pleasing art:
So filed, so polished, that no knots remain,
Each rule is useful, each example plain.
As reason then by language is expressed,
(Converse distinguishing 'twixt man and beast)
So this thy grammar makes the difference more
'Twixt man and man, than man and beast before.
Nor is thy academy thus confined,
But as it teacheth words, it moulds the mind.
Boys by degrees are out of nonage brought,
Nor grammar only for itself is taught,
Designed by thee not for the end, but way:
So artfully thou dost our youth convey
From step to step by thy judicious care,
And cheat'st 'em into knowledge ere aware,
That at the last, historians they become,
And know the deeds as well as words of Rome;
Which thou by sure chronology dost bind,
For that cements the story in the mind.
Thy modesty permits not more to say:
I'll imitate thy own compendious way.
Praise is a course: the speediness of pace
And shortness of the turning win the race.