_Horace_.--To be so praised by Virgil would have put me in Elysium while
I was alive. But I know your modesty will not suffer me, in return for
these encomiums, to speak of your character. Supposing it as perfect as
your poems, you would think, as you did of them, that it wanted
correction.
_Virgil_.--Don't talk of my modesty. How much greater was yours, when
you disclaimed the name of a poet, you whose odes are so noble, so
harmonious, so sublime!
_Horace_.--I felt myself too inferior to the dignity of that name.
_Virgil_.--I think you did like Augustus, when he refused to accept the
title of king, but kept all the power with which it was ever attended.
Even in your Epistles and Satires, where the poet was concealed, as much
as he could be, you may properly be compared to a prince in disguise, or
in his hours of familiarity with his intimate friends: the pomp and
majesty were let drop, but the greatness remained.
_Horace_.--Well, I will not contradict you; and, to say the truth, I
should do it with no very good grace, because in some of my Odes I have
not spoken so modestly of my own poetry as in my Epistles.
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