And now what shall I say about the matter of imitation? When you found yourself soaring so high on the wings of genius you ought to have foreseen that you would always have imitators. You should be glad that your endowments are such that many men long to be like you, although not many can succeed. Why not be glad, you who are sure of holding always the first place, when I, the least of mortals, am more than glad, am in fact puffed up with pride, because I have grown great enough for others--though I scarcely can believe that this is really true--to desire to imitate and copy me? In my case the pride and joy would only increase if among these imitators there should be found some few who were capable of surpassing me. I pray--not your Apollo, but the true God of Intellect whom I worship, to crown the efforts of all who may deem it worth their while to follow after me, and to grant that they may find it an easy thing to come up with me, and outstrip me too....
But I am wandering. It was my intention to speak to you of Virgil, than whom, as Flaccus says, this earth has produced no soul more spotless; and to suggest to you, great master of us both, certain excuses for his conduct.... I admit the truth of everything that you say concerning him, but it does not necessarily follow that I lend a sympathetic ear to the charges that you base upon this failure of his to make anywhere any mention of your name, laden and bedecked though he is with your spoils,--mention, you remind me, such as Lucan made, remembering in grateful strains the honour due to Smyrna's bard. Far from that, I am even going to suggest to you additional cause for complaint. Flaccus also remembers you, in many a passage, and always with the highest praise. In one place he exalts you above the very philosophers; in another he assigns to you the highest seat among the poets. Naso remembers you too, and Juvenal, and Statius. But why try to mention all who mention Homer? There is scarcely one of our writers but that belongs in that class. Why is it then, you will say, that I find the one man from whom I deserved most gratitude proving so utterly ungrateful? Before I answer you let me furnish you still another reason for complaint. Observe that he was not equally ungrateful in every case. Musæus and Linus and Orpheus are referred to more than once. So also, and with even greater humility, Hesiod the Ascræan and Theocritus of Syracuse. And finally, a thing that he never would have done if he had had any touch of jealousy, he takes pains to speak of Varus, and Gallus, and certain others of his contemporaries.