Page:The Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius.djvu/22

 or rather from Onomacritus, who lived in the times of Pisistratus, to those of our author's imitators, who lived in the decline of the Roman empire. To weigh the merits of these ancient poets in the just scale of criticism, and to appropriate to each his due share of praise, is a task too arduous and assuming for an humble editor to engage in. Yet such is the partiality of translators and editors to their favourite; poets, that they wish, either to find them seated above their rivals and contemporaries on the summits of Parnassus, or, if possible, to fix them there. But vain are these wishes, unless the testimonies of the first writers of antiquity concur to gratify them. The reputation of Apollonius can neither be impaired nor enhanced by the strictures of Scaliger and Rapin: the judgment of Quintilian and Longinus may, indeed, more materially affect it. They have delivered their opinions on our author in the following words:

ἐπείτοιγε καὶ ἄπτωτος ὁ Ἀπολλώνιος ἐν τοῖς Ἀργοναύταις ποιητὴς ἆρ' οὖν Ὄμηρος ἂν μᾶλλον ἢ Ἀπολλώνιος ἐθέλοις γενέσθαι; Sect. xxxiii. Longin. de Sublim.

Non contemnendum edidit opus æquali quadam mediocritate. Quinctil. Inst. Orat. L. x. c. 1.

Unfortunately, as it should seem, for the Rhodian, these celebrated strictures wear the double face of approbation and censure. The praise that is conveyed under the term ἄπτωτος, that he no where sinks,