Identify the text from which the following lines have been taken.

“Therefore, compare we the poet with the historian and with the moral philosopher; and if he go beyond them both, no other skill can match him:”

The correct option is Defense of Poesie.

The provided quotation is a famous passage from Sir Philip Sidney’s seminal work of literary criticism, An Apology for Poetry (also published posthumously in 1595 as The Defence of Poesie).
In this treatise, Sidney defends the art of poetry against contemporary critics who accused it of being useless or morally corrupting.

To establish the supremacy of poetry, Sidney compares the poet to two other key figures of knowledge and instruction: the moral philosopher and the historian.
He argues that:
1. The moral philosopher teaches virtue through abstract, dry, and difficult-to-grasp philosophical precepts.
2. The historian teaches virtue through concrete historical examples, but is restricted strictly to actual facts and the often-unvirtuous reality of past events.

Sidney posits that the poet triumphs over both because poetry combines the general notions of philosophy with the concrete examples of history, delivering them in a delightful and accessible manner. Thus, since the poet "goes beyond them both," Sidney concludes that no other human skill or discipline can match the power of poetry in teaching virtue.