It has been made a question, whether good poetry be derived from nature or from art. For my part, I can neither conceive what study can do without a rich [natural] vein, nor what rude genius can avail of itself: so much does the one require the assistance of the other, and so amicably do they conspire [to produce the same effect]. He who is industrious to reach the wished-for goal, has done and suffered much when a boy; he has sweated and shivered with cold; he has abstained from love and wine; he who sings the Pythian strains, Pythia cantica Hor. Ars 414 , songs like the hymns which were sung in honor of Apollo, by the chorus in some comedies. A player, called Pythaules, played during the intervals when the chorus left off singing. was first a learner, and in awe of a master. But [in poetry] it is now enough for a man to say of himself:— "I make admirable verses: a murrain seize the hindmost: it is scandalous for me to be outstripped, and fairly to acknowledge that I am ignorant of that which I never learned."
