Thomas Otway, 1680 (1652-1685)
In ages past (when will those times renew?),
When empires flourish’d, so did poets too.
When great Augustus the world’s empire held,
Horace and Ovid’s happy verse excell’d.
Ovid’s soft genius, and his tender arts
Of moving Nature, melted hardest hearts.
It did th’ imperial beauty, Julia, move
To listen to the language of his love.
Her father honour’d him: and on her breast
With ravish’d sense in her embraces prest,
He lay transported, fancy-full and blest.
Horace’s lofty genius boldlier rear’d
His manly head, and through all Nature steer’d;
Her richest pleasures in his verse refin’d,
And wrought ’em to the relish of the mind.
He lash’d with a true poet’s fearless rage,
The villanies and follies of the age;
Therefore Mecænas, that great fav’rite rais’d
Him high, and by him was he highly prais’d.
Our Shakespeare wrote, too, in an age as blest,
The happiest poet of his time, and best;
A gracious Prince’s favour cheer’d his muse,
A constant favour he ne’er fear’d to lose.
Therefore he wrote with fancy unconfin’d,
And thoughts that were immortal as his mind;
And from the crop of his luxuriant pen
E’er since succeeding poets humbly glean.
Prologue to the History and Fall of Caius Marius. A Tragedy. 1712.