The next, I think, is but a
cavil, though the cry is great against him, and hath continued from
the time of Macrobius to this present age; I hinted it before. They
lay no less than want of invention to his charge--a capital charge,
I must acknowledge; for a poet is a maker, as the word signifies;
and who cannot make--that is, invent--hath his name for nothing.
That which makes this accusation look so strong at the first sight
is that he has borrowed so many things from Homer, Apollonius
Rhodius, and others who preceded him. But in the first place, if
invention is to be taken in so strict a sense that the matter of a
poem must be wholly new, and that in all its parts, then Scaliger
hath made out, saith Segrais, that the history of Troy was no more
the invention of Homer than of Virgil. There was not an old woman
or almost a child, but had it in their mouths before the Greek poet
or his friends digested it into this admirable order in which we
read it. At this rate, as Solomon hath told us, there is nothing
new beneath the sun.
Pages:
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250