"They who endeavour not to correct themselves, according to so exact a model, are just like the patients who have open before them a book of admirable receipts for their diseases, and please themselves with reading it, without comprehending the nature of the remedies, or how to apply them to their cure."
Let Horace go off with these encomiums, which he has so well deserved.
To conclude the contention betwixt our three poets, I will use the words of Virgil, in his fifth Æneid, where Æneas proposes the rewards of the foot-race to the three first who should reach the goal.
——Tres præmia primi
Accipient, flavâque caput nectentur olivâ.
Let these three ancients be preferred to all the moderns, as first arriving at the goal; let them all be crowned, as victors, with the wreath that properly belongs to satire; but, after that, with this distinction amongst themselves,
Primus equum phaleris insignem victor habeto.
Let Juvenal ride first in triumph;
Alter Amazoniam pharetram, plenamque sagittis
Threiciis, lato quam circumplectitur auro
Balteus, et tereti subnectit fibula gemmâ.
Let Horace, who is the second, and but just the second, carry off the quivers and the arrows, as the badges of his satire, and the golden belt, and the diamond button;
Tertius Argolico hoc clypeo contentus abito.