"It was against the order of Nature for Homer to have brought forth the most excellent work there can ever be. In Nature's order things are imperfect at birth: they grow up, and become stronger as they grow. He made the childhood of poetry and of several other arts to be adult, complete and mature. That is why, following that beautiful testimony to him which Antiquity has bequeathed to us, he can be called "the first poet and the last": since before him there was none whom he could imitate: after him, none who could imitate him."