SOURCE: Grose, Christopher. Introduction to Ovid's Metamorphoses: An Index to the 1632 Commentary of George Sandys, pp. vii-xi. Malibu: Undena Publications, 1981, 154 p.

In the following excerpt, Grose discusses Sandys's commentary to his 1632 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, contending that it was influenced by Francis Bacon.

They will repeale the goodly exil'd traine Of gods and goddesses, which in thy just raigne Were banish'd nobler Poems, now, with these The silenc'd tales o'th' Metamorphoses Shall stuffe their lines, and swell the windy Page, Till Verse refin'd by thee, in this last Age, Turne ballad rime. … 

Thomas Carew, “An Elegie on the death of the Deane of Pauls, Dr. John Donne” (1633)

Thus does Thomas Carew seem to predict the course of English verse subsequent to the death of John Donne in 1631. As the elegist was well aware, the Ovidian gods and goddesses had already been wandering in English libraries for at least...