You can banish from thence scurrility
and profaneness, and restrain the licentious insolence of poets and
their actors in all things that shock the public quiet, or the
reputation of private persons, under the notion of humour. But I
mean not the authority which is annexed to your office, I speak of
that only which is inborn and inherent to your person; what is
produced in you by an excellent wit, a masterly and commanding
genius over all writers: whereby you are empowered, when you
please, to give the final decision of wit, to put your stamp on all
that ought to pass for current and set a brand of reprobation on
clipped poetry and false coin. A shilling dipped in the bath may go
for gold amongst the ignorant, but the sceptres on the guineas show
the difference. That your lordship is formed by nature for this
supremacy I could easily prove (were it not already granted by the
world) from the distinguishing character of your writing, which is
so visible to me that I never could be imposed on to receive for
yours what was written by any others, or to mistake your genuine
poetry for their spurious productions.
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