y Virgil was not equal to
him in his own art, which I leave to be determined by such as know them
both. I who, for my part, understand but one of them, can only say this,
according to my poor talent, that I do not believe the Muses themselves
could ever go beyond the Roman:

"Tale facit carmen docta testudine, quale
Cynthius impositis temperat articulis:"

["He plays on his learned lute a verse such as Cynthian Apollo
modulates with his imposed fingers."--Propertius, ii. 34, 79.]

and yet in this judgment we are not to forget that it is chiefly from
Homer that Virgil derives his excellence, that he is guide and teacher;
and that one touch of the Iliad has supplied him with body and matter out
of which to compose his great and divine AEneid. I do not reckon upon
that, but mix several other circumstances that render to me this poet
admirable, even as it were above human condition. And, in truth, I often
wonder that he who has produced, and, by his authority, given reputation
in the world to so many deities, was not deified himself. Being blind
and poor, living before the sciences were reduced into rule and certain
observation, he was so well acquainted with them, that all those who have
since taken upon them to establish governments, to carry on wars, and to
write either of religion or philosophy, of what sect soever, or of the
arts, have made use of him as of a most perfect instructor in the
knowledge of all things, and of his books as of a treasury of all sorts
of learning:

"Qui, quid sit pulcrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,
Planius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit:"

["Who tells us what is good, what evil, what useful, what not, more
clearly and better than Chrysippus and Crantor?"
--Horace, Ep., i. 2, 3.]

and as this other says,

"A quo, ceu fonte perenni,
Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis"

["From which, as from a perennial spring, the lips of the poets
are moistened by Pierian waters."--Ovid, Amoy., iii. 9, 25.]

and the other,

"Adde Heliconiadum comites, quorum unus Homerus
Sceptra potitus;"

["Add the companions of the Muses, whose sceptre Homer has solely
obtained."--Lucretius, iii. 1050.]

and the other:

"Cujusque ex ore profusos
Omnis posteritas latices in carmina duxit,