Page:Hero and Leander; a poem (IA heroleanderpoem00musa).pdf/10

ii work in his possession. My own opinion was confirm'd by this assertion. The Poem never appear'd to me to have the marks of antiquity. I never observ'd in it any resemblance of the Down (if I may so speak!) of ancient Poesy; so widely I differ from those, who derive it from earliest time! This testimony has remov'd every doubt from myself, and others.'

It may be lamented, that this eminent Scholar was satisfy'd to dismiss the piece, without pointing particular instances of its Modernism.

I would not be understood with Scaliger, whose enthusiasm was singular in articles of Taste, to prefer to, or even to compare with the Works of Homer, a composition so abridg'd. Scaliger, it may be mention'd with concern, study'd the depreciation of Mæonian excellence; he on this idea presumes the Author of the present Poem to have existed long before the days of that Writer, consequently to have been the genuine Musæus; though several expressions are evidently cast in the Mold of Antiquity, the tenor of the phraseology may seem to evince it to have been of a more modern date.