has been heard with applause; he has been received with acclamations;
and he has enjoyed a short-lived transport.

Bassus, it is true, has lately received from Vespasian a present of
fifty thousand sesterces. Upon that occasion, we all admired the
generosity of the prince. To deserve so distinguished a proof of the
sovereign's esteem is, no doubt, highly honourable; but is it not
still more honourable, if your circumstances require it, to serve
yourself by your talents? to cultivate your genius, for your own
advantage? and to owe every thing to your own industry, indebted to
the bounty of no man whatever? It must not be forgotten, that the
poet, who would produce any thing truly excellent in the kind, must
bid farewell to the conversation of his friends; he must renounce, not
only the pleasures of Rome, but also the duties of social life; he
must retire from the world; as the poets say, "to groves and grottos
every muse's son." In other words, he must condemn himself to a
sequestered life in the gloom of solitude.


X. The love of fame, it seems, is the passion that inspires the poet's
genius: but even in this respect, is he so amply paid as to rival in
any degree the professors of the persuasive arts? As to the
indifferent poet, men leave him to his own [a] mediocrity: the real
genius moves in a narrow circle. Let there be a reading of a poem by
the ablest master of his art: will the fame of his performance reach
all quarters, I will not say of the empire, but of Rome only? Among
the strangers who arrive from Spain, from Asia, or from Gaul, who
enquires [b] after Saleius Bassus? Should it happen that there is one,
who thinks, of him; his curiosity is soon satisfied; he passes on,
content with a transient view, as if he had seen a picture or a