harsh, are somewhat softer. Even the statues of Myron are not sufficiently
alive; and yet you would not hesitate to pronounce them beautiful. But
those of Polycletes are much finer, and, in my mind, completely finished.
The case is the same in Painting; for in the works of Zeuxis, Polygnotus,
Timanthes, and several other masters who confined themselves to the use of
four colours, we commend the air and the symmetry of their figures; but in
Aetion, Nicomachus, Protogenes, and Apelles, every thing is finished to
perfection. This, I believe, will hold equally true in all the other arts;
for there is not one of them which was invented and completed at the same
time. I cannot doubt, for instance, that there were many Poets before
Homer: we may infer it from those very songs which he himself informs us
were sung at the feasts of the Phaeacians, and of the profligate suitors
of Penelope. Nay, to go no farther, what is become of the ancient poems of
our own countrymen?"

"Such as the Fauns and rustic Bards compos'd,
When none the rocks of poetry had cross'd,
Nor wish'd to form his style by rules of art,
Before this vent'rous man: &c.

"Old Ennius here speaks of himself; nor does he carry his boast beyond the
bounds of truth: the case being really as he describes it. For we had only
an Odyssey in Latin, which resembled one of the rough and unfinished
statues of Daedalus; and some dramatic pieces of Livius, which will
scarcely bear a second reading. This Livius exhibited his first
performance at Rome in the Consulship of M. Tuditanus, and C. Clodius the
son of Caecus, the year before Ennius was born, and, according to the
account of my friend Atticus, (whom I choose to follow) the five hundred
and fourteenth from the building of the city. But historians are not
agreed about the date of the year. Attius informs us that Livius was taken