After this not only Prime of Poets, but Philosophers, had written his
two great poems of Iliads and Odysses; which (for their first lights
born before all learning) were worthily called the Sun and Moon of the
Earth; finding no compensation, he writ in contempt of men this
ridiculous poem of Vermin, giving them nobility of birth, valorous
elocution not inferior to his heroes. At which the Gods themselves, put
in amaze, called councils about their assistance of either army, and
the justice of their quarrels, even to the mounting of Jove’s artillery
against them, and discharge of his three-forked flashes; and all for
the drowning of a mouse. After which slight and only recreative touch,
he betook him seriously to the honour of the Gods, in Hymns resounding
all their peculiar titles, jurisdictions, and dignities; which he
illustrates at all parts, as he had been continually conversant amongst
them; and whatsoever authentic Poesy he omitted in the episodes
contained in his Iliads and Odysses, he comprehends and concludes in
his Hymns and Epigrams. All his observance and honour of the Gods,
rather moved their envies against him, than their rewards, or respects
of his endeavours. And so like a man _verecundi ingenii_ (which he
witnesseth of himself) he lived unhonoured and needy till his death;
and yet notwithstanding all men’s servile and manacled miseries, to his
most absolute and never-equalled merit, yea even bursten profusion to
imposture and impiety, hear our ever-the-same intranced, and
never-sleeping, Master of the Muses, to his last accents, incomparably
singing.