“Sicut fortis equus spatio qui forte supremo”;
“Quai neque Dardaneis campeis potuere perire
Nec cum capta capei, nec cum combusta cremari.”
The last passage Virgil copied, as he did many others, and it is instructive to see how his more polished taste tones down his predecessor’s jingle:
¸ “Num Sigæis occumbere campis,
Num capti potuere capi? num incensa cremavit
Troja viros?”[[125]]
Surrey’s blank verse has the quaintness of his age, but not its defects of taste. Martial, writing about two centuries after Ennius, sneers at him, much as Ennius had sneered at his predecessor, Nævius—he who lamented that Latin poetry was to die with him!
“Ennius est lectus, salvo tibi Roma Marone.”[[126]]
Pope, writing nearly the same length of time after Surrey, has only praise for him: “Surrey, the Grenville of a former age“—at least, Pope meant it for praise.”