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. But to make
you know your pre-eminence over me and all writers of Latin verse, I will
carry you to Quintilian, the best of all Roman critics, who will tell you
in what rank you ought to be placed.

_Virgil_.--I fear his judgment of me was biassed by your commendation.
But who is this shade that Mercury is conducting? I never saw one that
stalked with so much pride, or had such ridiculous arrogance expressed in
his looks!

_Horace_.--They come towards us. Hail, Mercury! What is this stranger
with you?

_Mercury_.--His name is Julius Caesar Scaliger, and he is by profession a
critic.

_Horace_.--Julius Caesar Scaliger! He was, I presume, a dictator in
criticism.

_Mercury_.--Yes, and he has exercised his sovereign power over you.

_Horace_.--I will not presume to oppose it. I had enough of following
Brutus at Philippi.

_Mercury_.--Talk to him a little. He'll amuse you. I brought him to you
on purpose.

_Horace_.--Virgil, do you accost him. I can't do it with proper gravity.
I shall laugh in his face.

_Virgil_.--Sir, may I ask for what reason you cast your eyes so
superciliously upon Horace and me? I don't remember that Augustus ever
looked down upon us with such an air of superiority when we were his
subjects.

_Scaliger_.--He was only a sovereign over your bodies, and owed his power
to violence and usurpation. But I have from Nature an absol