The next, in majesty; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, she join’d the former two.
The original of these fine lines was probably a Latin distich written by Selvaggi at Rome, which has been thus translated:
Greece boasts her Homer, Rome her Virgil’s name,
But England’s Milton vies with both in fame.
Cowper’s lines on Milton may be compared with Dryden’s:
Ages elapsed ere Homer’s lamp appear’d,
And ages ere the Mantuan Swan was heard
To carry Nature lengths unknown before,