On the Author of Letters on Literature
The genius of the Augustan age
His head among Rome’s ruins reared,
And bursting with heroic rage,
When literary Heron appeared,
Thou hast, he cried, like him of old
Who set the Ephesian dome on fir
By being scandalously bold,
Attained the mark of thy desire.
And for traducing Virgil’s name
Shalt share his merited reward;
A perpetuity of fame,
That rots, and stinks, and is abhorred.
