'He will not.' Will any one be able to imitate the human body, if he does not know the number, proportion, colour, or figure of the limbs?
'How can he ?' But suppose we know some picture or figure to be an exact resemblance of a man, should we not also require to know whether the picture is beautiful or not?
'Quite right.' The judge of the imitation is required to know, therefore, first the original, secondly the truth, and thirdly the merit of the execution?
'True.' Then let us not weary in the attempt to bring music to the standard of the Muses and of truth.

The Muses are not like human poets; they never spoil or mix rhythms or scales, or mingle instruments and human voices, or confuse the manners and strains of men and women, or of freemen and slaves, or of rational beings and brute animals.

They do not practise the baser sorts of musical arts, such as the 'matured judgments,' of whom Orpheus speaks, would ridicule.

But modern poets separate metre from music, and melody and rhythm from words, and use the instrument alone without the voice.

The consequence is, that the meaning of the rhythm and of the time are not understood.