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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; consequently that the Goths and monks were the first inventers of verse, and that Homer and Virgil, as well as Milton, wrote nothing but prose.

— Joseph Trapp The Preface to The Aeneis of Virgil (1718)

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A man cannot command his own motions while he reads this; the very verses are alive; and the reader is transported out of himself.

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

The Preface to The Aeneis of Virgil (1718)

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

The Preface to The Aeneis of Virgil (1718)

Aurora, from Tithonus' saffron bed
Now rising, sprinkled over the world with light.

The Aeneis of Virgil, Translated Into Blank Verse (1718)

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

The Preface to The Aeneis of Virgil (1718)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Joseph Trapp (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.