Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge--nay, the
greatest philosopher the world ever had--for he noted the vices of
all knowledges in all creatures, and out of many men's perfections
in a science he formed still one art. So he taught us two offices
together, how we ought to judge rightly of others, and what we ought
to imitate specially in ourselves. But all this in vain without a
natural wit and a poetical nature in chief. For no man, so soon as
he knows this or reads it, shall be able to write the better; but as
he is adapted to it by nature, he shall grow the perfecter writer.
He must have civil prudence and eloquence, and that whole; not taken
up by snatches or pieces in sentences or remnants when he will
handle business or carry counsels, as if he came then out of the
declaimer's gallery, or shadow furnished but out of the body of the
State, which commonly is the school of men.
Virorum schola respub.--Lysippus.--Apelles.--Naevius.--The poet is
the nearest borderer upon the orator, and expresseth all his
virtues, though he be tied more to numbers, is his equal in
ornament, and above him in his strengths.
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