Horace, though he has written an “ars poetica,” teaches with so little art that almost the whole work seems nearer to satire. The commentaries of Aristotle, as we have them, are incomplete. The prudent Vida gives much good advice toward making a poet more wary, but takes him as already accomplished to lead him to perfection. We have led him by the right way through all paths to the very end (iv).
From time to time he inserts reminders of his magistracy.
Thus far Aristotle; but a more accurate account is as follows (46).
For thus, with more penetration than Aristotle’s ... (201).
No one before us has reduced figures to definite classification (307).
So much for inventio. With greatest toil amid many difficulties we have elaborated these precepts, which before us either were not explained at all, or, scattered without art or order, were merely implied, or were in substance or expression inept (432).
The Greeks are mistaken if they think we have taken anything from them except to improve it (598).
As if we were servants of the Greeklings, and not correctors (623).
His learning is too large to be limited to the subject. “Not to omit anything that makes for erudition” (170), he inserts, for example, a long chapter (I. xviii) on dancing, and another (III. ci) on Roman marriage customs. He is even from time to time autobiographical.
We too have labored not a little that this glory [of hymnus in its ancient sense] might be less obscure among the Latins (123).