--Seneca.--Plato.--Aristotle.--Helicon.--Pegasus.--
Parnassus.--Ovid.--First, we require in our poet or maker (for that
title our language affords him elegantly with the Greek) a goodness
of natural wit. For whereas all other arts consist of doctrine and
precepts, the poet must be able by nature and instinct to pour out
the treasure of his mind, and as Seneca saith, Aliquando secundum
Anacreontem insanire jucundum esse; by which he understands the
poetical rapture. And according to that of Plato, Frustra poeticas
fores sui compos pulsavit. And of Aristotle, Nullum magnum ingenium
sine mixtura dementiae fuit. Nec potest grande aliquid, et supra
caeteros loqui, nisi mota mens. Then it riseth higher, as by a
divine instinct, when it contemns common and known conceptions. It
utters somewhat above a mortal mouth. Then it gets aloft and flies
away with his rider, whither before it was doubtful to ascend. This
the poets understood by their Helicon, Pegasus, or Parnassus; and
this made Ovid to boast,
"Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo
Sedibus aethereis spiritus ille venit." {139a}
Lipsius.
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