John Dryden on Virgil
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“He seems to have studied not to be translated.”
“Virgil had the gift of expressing much in little, and sometimes in silence...”
“Virgil cannot be said to copy Homer; the Grecian had only the advantage of writing first.”
“Virgil, above all poets, had a stock, which I may call almost inexhaustible, of figurative, elegant, and sounding words.”
“I looked on Virgil as a succinct and grave majestic writer; one who weighed not only every thought, but every word and syllable.”
“Virgil was of a quiet, sedate temper; Homer was violent, impetuous, and full of fire. The chief talent of Virgil was propriety of thoughts, and ornament of words.”
“Virgil is so exact in every word, that none can be changed but for a worse; nor any one removed from its place, but the harmony will be altered. He pretends sometimes to trip; but it is only to make you think him in danger of a fall, when he is most secure.”
“There is an inimitable grace in Virgil's words, and in them principally consists that beauty which gives so inexpressible a pleasure to him who best understands their force. This diction of his, I must once again say, is never to be copied; and since it cannot, he will appear but lame in the best translation.”