improvement. He compared himself to a bear, that licks her cub into form. If this was his regular practice in the Georgics, we may justly suppose that it was the same in the Aeneid. Yet, after all this labour, he intended to devote three years entirely to its farther amendment. Horace has gone so far in recommending careful correction, that he figuratively mentions nine years as an adequate period for that purpose. But whatever may be the time, there is no precept which he urges either oftener or more forcibly, than a due attention to this important subject.
(191) *Saepe stylum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint*
*Scripturus.—Sat. i. x.*
> Would you a reader’s just esteem engage?
> Correct with frequent care the blotted page.—Francis.
————*Vos, O*
*Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite, quod non*
*Multa dies et multa litura coercuit, atque*
*Perfectum decies non castigavit ad uuguem.*
*De. Art. Poet.*
> Sons of Pompilius, with contempt receive,
> Nor let the hardy poem hope to live,
> Where time and full correction don’t refine
> The finished work, and polish every line.—Francis.To the several causes above enumerated, as concurring to form the great superiority of the Augustan age, as respects the productions of literature, one more is to be subjoined, of a nature the most essential: the liberal and unparalleled encouragement given to distinguished