Clypeum constituit contra exortum Hyperionis;
Oculos effodere ut posset splendore æreo.
Ita, radiis solis aciem effodit luminis,
Malis bene esse ne videret civibus.
Sic ego, fulgentis splendore pecuniæ,
Volo elucificare exitum ætatis meæ,
Ne in re bonâ esse videam nequam filium[552].”
According to Aulus Gellius, Laberius has taken too much license in inventing words; and that author also gives various examples of his use of obsolete expressions, or such as were employed only by the lowest dregs of the people[553]. Horace seems to have considered an admiration of the Mimes of Laberius as the consummation of critical folly[554]. I am far, however, from considering Horace as an infallible judge of true poetical excellence. He evidently attached more importance to correctness and terseness of style, than to originality of genius or fertility of invention. I am convinced he would not have admired Shakspeare: He would have considered Addison and Pope as much finer poets, and would have included Falstaff, and Autolycus, and Sir Toby Belch, the clowns and the boasters of our great dramatist, in the same censure which he bestows on the Plautinos sales and the Mimes [pg 332]of Laberius. Probably, too, the freedom of the prologue, and other passages of his dramas, contributed to draw down the disapprobation of this Augustan critic, as it already had placed the dramatic wreath on the brow of