another fifteen hundred years, in the 'Jerusalem Delivered.' The
Greeks also boasted of their Pindar and Anacreon in lyric poetry; and
of Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles, and Eschylus, in dramatic
poetry.


Did the Romans possess any distinguished Poets?

Yes; among the epic poets were Ovid and Tibullus; among dramatists,
Plautus and Terence; of didactic and philosophic poets, Lucretius,
Virgil, Horace, and Silius Italicus. All these were so many miracles
of human genius; and their works afford the models of their respective
species of composition. Most of the works of the ancients have in
sentiment, if not in spirit, been translated into English.

_Miracles_, wonders.

_Genius_, natural talent.

_Respective_, particular.

_Sentiment_, thought, meaning.


Did not the same revolution which undermined the Greek and Roman
empires, and destroyed learning, the arts and sciences, and the taste
for elegance and luxury, also prove fatal to Poetry?

It did; the hordes of barbarians who overran Europe wiped out
civilization in their progress, and literature, art, and science fled