Page:Monsieur Bossu's Treatise of the epick poem - Le Bossu (1695).djvu/320

 tiresome and tedious, Aristotle ignorant, Demosthenes and Cicero vulgar Orators, Virgil a Poet without either Grace or Beauty, and Horace an Author unpolished, languid, and without force? The Barbarians who ravag'd Greece, and Italy, and who laboured with so much Fury to destroy all things that were fine and noble, have never done any thing so horrible as this. But I hope that the false Taste of some particular Men without Authority, will not be imputed to the whole Age, nor give the least Blemish to the Ancients. 'Twas to no purpose that a certain Emperour declar'd himself an Enemy to Homer, Virgil, and Titus Livius. All his Efforts were ineffectual, and the Opposition he made to Works so perfect, serv'd only to augment in his History the number of his Follies, and render him more odious to all Posterity.