"[Statius] has as luxuriant an imagination as Lucan, but it is easy to see that he oftener checked it. You will find in his Thebaid innumerable beauties, but you will also see too many faults. You will see a fire and spirit equal to all that appeals in the Poets of the greatest name; but you will wish not only that it had been more limited, but that it had been better regulated: he has a great deal of natural dignity, but in carrying it too far he often spoils its lustre. His language is often elegant to a very great degree, and though not universally, yet in a very great part, is appropriated in a very happy manner. If there be one fault predominant above the others in the Thebaid, it is that he is too florid; but you will see that in this the fault was in the impetuosity of his fancy rather than in defect of judgment: his subject ran away with him, and he gave the reins to imagination. In his Sylvae we see him with all this false glare, natural, elegant, and easy. His Achilleid there is no pronouncing any thing upon, for it was never retouched. You will find in many parts of his Thebaid a great deal of the true sublime: in others he carries it into rant and bombast. In the Achilleid there is more of this in proportion than in the Thebaid; but we are not from thence to conclude that he grew worse in this respect as he continued his application: had he lived to finish, he would also have corrected that poem."