chief subject of Aristotle's criticism.]

[Line 652: Who conquered nature--He wrote, besides his other
works, treatises on Astronomy, Mechanics, Physics, and Natural History.]

[Line 665: Dionysius, born at Halicarnassus about 50 B.C., was
a learned critic, historian, and rhetorician at Rome in the Augustan
age.]

[Line 667: Petronius.--A Roman voluptuary at the court of
Nero whose ambition was to shine as a court exquisite. He is generally
supposed to be the author of certain fragments of a comic romance called
_Petronii Arbitri Satyricon_.]

[Line 669: Quintilian, born in Spain 40 A.D. was a celebrated
teacher of rhetoric and oratory at Rome. His greatwork is _De
Institutione Oratorica_, a complete system of rhetoric, which is here
referred to.]

[Line 675: Longinus, a Platonic philosopher and famous
rhetorician, born either in Syria or at Athens about 213 A.D., was
probably the best critic of antiquity. From his immense knowledge, he
was called "a living library" and "walking museum," hence the poet speaks
of him as inspired by _all the Nine_--Muses that is. These were
Clio, the muse of History, Euterpe, of Music, Thaleia, of Pastoral and
Comic Poetry and Festivals, Melpomene, of Tragedy, Terpsichore, of
Dancing, Erato, of Lyric and Amorous Poetry, Polyhymnia, of Rhetoric and
Singing, Urania, of Astronomy, Calliope, of Eloquence and Heroic
Poetry.]