I have asked some learned men, whether they are
not in reality as much tired as myself with reading this poet: those
who spoke ingenuously, assured me that he had made them fall asleep,
and yet that they could not well avoid giving him a place in their
libraries; but that it was merely as they would do an antique, or
those rusty medals which are kept only for curiosity, and are of no
manner of use in commerce."
"But your excellency does not surely form the same opinion of
Virgil?" said Candide.
"Why, I grant," replied Pococurante, "that the second, third,
fourth, and sixth books of his Aeneid, are excellent; but as for his
pious Aeneas, his strong Cloanthus, his friendly Achates, his boy
Ascanius, his silly king Latinus, his ill-bred Amata, his insipid
Lavinia, and some other characters much in the same strain, I think
there cannot in nature be anything more flat and disagreeable. I
must confess I prefer Tasso far beyond him; nay, even that sleepy
taleteller Ariosto."
"May I take the liberty to ask if you do not experience great
pleasure from reading Horace?" said Candide.
"There are maxims in this writer," replied Pococurante, "whence a
man of the world may reap some benefit; and the short measure of the
verse makes them more easily to be retained in the memory.
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