PAGE 191.
Leave poets free to perish as they will.
Following Mr. Howes and probably others who have written on the Ars Poetica, though apparently not the latest editors, I regard all the words from "Deus immortalis haberi" to the end as part of Horace's speech to the man who thinks of rescuing the mad poet. Much of the humour of what follows, e. g. "Nec semel hoc fecit," "Nec satis apparet," &c. would, it seems to me, be lost on any other supposition.