Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/298

 poets, or among those whom both the present age and posterity will disdainfully reject? He may fairly be placed among the ancients, who is younger either by a short month only, or even by a whole year. I take the advantage of this concession, and pull away by little and little, as [if they were] the hairs of a horse’s tail: and I take away a single one and then again another single one; till, like a tumbling heap, [my adversary], who has recourse to annals and estimates excellence by the year, and admires nothing but what Libitina has made sacred, falls to the ground.

Ennius the wise, the nervous, and (as our critics say) a second Homer, seems lightly to regard what becomes of his promises and Pythagorean dreams. Is not Nævius in people’s hands, and sticking almost fresh in their memory? So sacred is every ancient poem. As often as a debate arises, whether this poet or the other be preferable; Pacuvius bears away the character of a learned, Accius, of a lofty writer; Afranius’ gown is said to have fitted Menander; Plautus, to hurry after the pattern of the Sicilian Epicharmus; Cæcilius, to excel in gravity, Terence in contrivance. These mighty Rome learns by heart, and these she views crowded in her narrow theater; these she esteems and accounts her poets from Livy the writer’s age down to our time. Sometimes