Enriched with rules of pure morality,
Reading instructions unto heathen men.
With more contentment than the Stoic's pen.
The ancients unto poets only gave
260The epithets of wise, divine, and grave;
Because their metres taught the world to know
To whom they did their holy worship owe.
The Greek is free, and kinder in her praise
Which she bestows upon poetic lays.
She calls all that which takes not essence by