Holyday is not
afraid to say that there was never such a fall as from his odes to
his satires, and that he, injuriously to himself, untuned his harp.
The majestic way of Persius and Juvenal was new when they began it,
but it is old to us; and what poems have not, with time, received an
alteration in their fashion?--"which alteration," says Holyday, "is
to after-times as good a warrant as the first." Has not Virgil
changed the manners of Homer's heroes in his AEneis? Certainly he
has, and for the better; for Virgil's age was more civilised and
better bred, and he writ according to the politeness of Rome under
the reign of Augustus Caesar, not to the rudeness of Agamemnon's age
or the times of Homer. Why should we offer to confine free spirits
to one form when we cannot so much as confine our bodies to one
fashion of apparel? Would not Donne's satires, which abound with so
much wit, appear more charming if he had taken care of his words and
of his numbers? But he followed Horace so very close that of
necessity he must fall with him; and I may safely say it of this
present age, that if we are not so great wits as Donne, yet
certainly we are better poets.
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