Note 284 — AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Alluding to
"Mantua, væ miseræ, nimium vicina Cremonæ." Virg.—Warburton.
This application is made in Kennet's edition of Vida.—Warton.
To say that the birth-place of Vida would be next in fame to the birth-place of Virgil was to rank him before all the other poets that Italy had produced—before Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, and Ariosto. The antithesis is marred by its want of truth.