“Liquidus, puroque simillimus amni,”

               ["Liquid, and likest the pure river.” 
               —­Horace, Ep., ii. s, 120.]

and so possesses the soul with his graces that we forget those of his fable.  This same consideration carries me further:  I observe that the best of the ancient poets have avoided affectation and the hunting after, not only fantastic Spanish and Petrarchic elevations, but even the softer and more gentle touches, which are the ornament of all succeeding poesy.  And yet there is no good judgment that will condemn this in the ancients, and that does not incomparably more admire the equal polish, and that perpetual sweetness and flourishing beauty of Catullus’s epigrams, than all the stings with which Martial arms the tails of his.  This is by the same reason that I gave before, and as Martial says of himself: 

               “Minus illi ingenio laborandum fuit,
               in cujus locum materia successerat:” 

     ["He had the less for his wit to do that the subject itself
     supplied what was necessary.”—­Martial, praef. ad lib. viii.]

The first, without being moved, or without getting angry, make themselves sufficiently felt; they have matter enough of laughter throughout, they need not tickle themselves; the others have need of foreign assistance; as they have the less wit they must have the more body; they mount on horseback, because they are not able to stand on their own legs.  As in our balls, those mean fellows who teach to dance, not being able to represent the presence and dignity of our noblesse, are fain to put themselves forward with dangerous jumping, and other strange motions and tumblers tricks; and the ladies are less put to it in dance; where there are various coupees, changes, and quick motions of body, than in some other of a more sedate kind, where they are only to move a natural pace, and to represent their ordinary grace and presence.  And so I have seen good drolls, when in their own everyday clothes, and with the same face they always wear, give us all the pleasure of their art, when their apprentices, not yet arrived at such a pitch of perfection, are fain to meal their faces, put themselves into ridiculous disguises, and make a hundred grotesque faces to give us whereat to laugh.  This conception of mine is nowhere more demonstrable than in comparing the AEneid with Orlando Furioso; of which we see the first, by dint of wing, flying in a brave and lofty place, and always following his point:  the latter, fluttering and hopping from tale to tale, as from branch to branch, not daring to trust his wings but in very short flights, and perching at every turn, lest his breath and strength should fail.

“Excursusque breves tentat.”

               ["And he attempts short excursions.” 
               —­Virgil, Georgics, iv. 194.]

These, then, as to this sort of subjects, are the authors that best please me.