[35] Thus far Aristotle. The whole passage in the “Poetics” runs: “It is not by writing in verse or prose that the Historian and Poet are distinguished. The work of Herodotus might be versified; but it would still be a species of History, no less with metre than without. They are distinguished by this, that the one relates what has been, the other what might be. On this account Poetry is more philosophical, and a more excellent thing than History, for Poetry is chiefly conversant about general truth; History about particular. In what manner, for example, any person of a certain character would speak or act, probably or necessarily, this is general; and this is the object of Poetry, even while it makes use of particular names. But what Alcibiades did, or what happened to him, this is particular truth.”
[36] Justinus, who lived in the second century, made an epitome of the history of the Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, Macedonian, and Roman Empires, from Trogus Pompeius, who lived in the time of Augustus.
[37] Dares Phrygius was supposed to have been a priest of Vulcan, who was in Troy during the siege, and the Phrygian Iliad ascribed to him as early as the time of Ælian, A.D. 230, was supposed, therefore, to be older than Homer’s.
[38] Quintus Curtius, a Roman historian of uncertain date, who wrote the history of Alexander the Great in ten books, of which two are lost and others defective.
[39] Not knowledge but practice.
[40] The Poet Monarch of all Human Sciences.
[41] In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” a resemblance has been fancied between this passage and Rosalind’s description of Biron, and the jest:—
“Which his fair tongue—conceit’s expositor—
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
That agéd ears play truant at his tables,
And younger hearings are quite ravishéd,
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.”
[42] Virgil’s “Æneid,” Book xii.:—
“And shall this ground fainthearted dastard
Turnus flying view?
Is it so vile a thing to die?”(Phaer’s Translation [1573].)