“But, you will say, he is a poet himself, and the Empress mends his verses. It is true she mends his verses, but she also mends his socks, and a sensible monarch no more bothers to write his own verse than he bothers to make his own socks, or else what would be the use of being a monarch? But, again, you will object: if they are written for him, why don’t they scan? The answer is simple. The man who makes them knows his business, and he knows that if they did scan nobody would believe that our dear Master had written them. “And in having his verse written for him by a professional, and a bad professional--I hope, Horatius, it is not you, by the way--the Emperor displays not only sense but a rare wisdom. For a gentleman should never bother to acquire technical skill. If he loves music let him hire professional flute-players, but do not let him waste his time in practising ineffectual scales; and if he wants poetry let him order of Vergilius an epic, and if he wishes to pose as a literary monarch let him employ our friend Horatius to write him a few verses without sense or scansion--although I am afraid Horatius would find this difficult. You are too correct, Horatius. That is your fault and mine. We write verse so correctly that I sometimes think that in the far distant future, when the barbarians shall have conquered us, we shall be held up as models somewhere in Scythia or Thule by pedagogues to the barbarian children of future generations! Horrible thought! When Rome falls may our language and our literature perish with us. May we be utterly forgotten. My verse at least shall escape the pedagogues, for it is licentious; and yours, Crassus, I fear they will scarcely understand across the centuries. But, O Vergilius, the spirit of your poetry, so noble and so pure, is the very thing to be turned into a bed of Procrustes for little Dacians!” “You are unfair on the Emperor,” said Vergilius, “he has excellent taste.” “In poets certainly,” said Ovidius, “but not in poetry.”