[Footnote 4: 'Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned
for wit and learning, I set apart one day on purpose. I proposed that
Homer and Aristotle might appear at the head of all their commentators;
but these were so numerous that some hundreds were forced to attend in the
court and outward rooms of the palace. I knew, and could distinguish these
two heroes, at first sight, not only from the crowd, but from each other.
Homer was the taller and comelier person of the two, walked very erect for
one of his age, and his eyes were the most quick and piercing I ever
beheld. Aristotle stooped much, and made use of a staff. His visage was
meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow. I soon discovered
that both of them were perfect strangers to the rest of the company, and
had never seen or heard of them before. And I had a whisper from a ghost,
who shall be nameless, "That these commentators always kept in the most
distant quarters from their principals, in the lower world, through a
consciousness of shame and guilt, because they had so horribly
misrepresented the meaning of these authors to posterity." I introduced
Didymus and Eustathius to Homer, and prevailed on him to treat them better
than perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they wanted a genius to
enter into the spirit of a poet. But Aristotle was out of all patience
with the account I gave him of Scotus and Ramus, as I presented them to
him; and he asked them "whether the rest of the tribe were as great dunces
as themselves?"']