----- His irreverent independence in regard to Virgil is noticeable in a critic of his time, and of course especially so if one comes [Sidenote: _Examples: Homer’s nodding, prose in tragedy, Virgil, minor poetry._] to him straight from Scaliger. It would not be fair to represent him as a “Virgiliomastix,” but his finer critical sense enables him to perceive the superiority of Homer, in respect of whom he goes so far[117] as to say that Virgil “is not a poet.” But this—_per se_, of course, excessive—had been provoked by the extravagance of Maronolatry from Vida downwards: and Castelvetro does not scruple to praise the Mantuan for his grasp, his variety of phrase, and other good things. He has an extremely sensible passage—not novel to us, but by no means a truism to his contemporaries or to a good many poets still—on what he who publishes miscellaneous poetry has to expect. By the publication, says this other Messer Lodovico, of a thing which nobody asked him for (_cosa non richiesta_) without any necessity, he publishes at the same time his confidence in himself, and affirms that the thing is good. “Which thing,” goes on Castelvetro in his pitiless critical manner, “if it be found to be faulty (_rea_) and blameworthy, it convicts him who publishes it either of malice or of folly.” Alas! for the minor bard. ----- Footnote 117: _Poet. d’Arist._, p. 545. It is fair to say that the ban is only pronounced in reference to a single point—the management of _speeches_. -----