Italy
, I consider Time as an Immense Ocean, in which many noble Authors are entirely swallowed up, many very much shattered and damaged, some quite disjointed and broken into pieces, while some have wholly escaped the Common Wreck; but the Number of the last is very small.
Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto.
Among the mutilated Poets of Antiquity, there is none whose Fragments are so beautiful as those of
Sappho
. They give us a Taste of her Way of Writing, which is perfectly conformable with that extraordinary Character we find of her, in the Remarks of those great Criticks who were conversant with her Works when they were entire. One may see by what is left of them, that she followed Nature in all her Thoughts, without descending to those little Points, Conceits, and Turns of Wit with which many of our modern Lyricks are so miserably infected. Her Soul seems to have been made up of Love and Poetry; She felt the Passion in all its Warmth, and described it in all its Symptoms. She is called by ancient Authors the Tenth Muse; and by
Plutarch
is compared to
Cacus
the Son of