The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third she joined the other two."
From Cowper's "Table Talk":
"Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared,
And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard.
To carry nature lengths unknown before,
To give a Milton birth, asked ages more.
Thus genius rose and set at ordered times,
And shot a dayspring into distant climes,
Ennobling every region that he chose;
He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose,
And, tedious years of Gothic darkness past,
Emerged all splendor in our isle at last.
Thus lovely Halcyons dive into the main,
Then show far off their shining plumes again."
OVID
Ovid, often alluded to in poetry by his other name of Naso, was
born in the year 43 B.C. He was educated for public life and held
some offices of considerable dignity, but poetry was his delight,
and he early resolved to devote himself to it. He accordingly
sought the society of the contemporary poets, and was acquainted
with Horace and saw Virgil, though the latter died when Ovid was
yet too young and undistinguished to have formed his acquaintance.
Ovid spent an easy life at Rome in the enjoyment of a competent
income. He was intimate with the family of Augustus, the emperor,
and it is supposed that some serious offence given to some member
of that family was the cause of an event which reversed the poet's
happy circumstances and clouded all the latter portion of his
life.
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