He who says he values no translation of this or that poem because he…

If some gentlemen are resolved that blank verse shall be prose, they have my free leave to enjoy their saying, provided I may have theirs to think they mean nothing by it, unless they can prove that rhyme is essential to metre; …

Of mine the world will and ought to be judge, whatever I say or think, and its judgment in these matters is never erroneous.

Poetry itself being the music of thoughts and words, as music is the poetry of sounds.

The art and triumph of poetry are in nothing more seen and felt than in moving the passions.

However poetry may have been dishonoured by the follies of some and the vices of others, the abuse or corruption of the best things being always the worst, it will notwithstanding be ever regarded, as it ever has been, by the wisest and …

Arms and the man I sing who first from Troy Came to the Italian and Lavinian shores, Exiled by fate; much tossed on land and sea By power divine and cruel Juno's rage; Much too in war he suffered, till he reared A city and to Latium …