At last I chanced to light on a little passage more Virgilian, to my thinking, than Virgil himself.

Tell me what you say to my criticism.

It is part of Apollo's speech to the laurel Semper habebunt Te coma, te citharae, te nostrae, laure, pharetrae Tu ducibus Latiis aderis, cum laeta triumphum Vox canet, et longas visent Capitolia pompas.
Portibus Augustis cadem fidissima custos Ante fores stabis, mediamque tuebere quercum.
As to other Latin writers, Sallust has gone sadly down in my opinion.
Caesar has risen wonderfully.

I think him fully entitled to Cicero's praise.

[In the dialogue "De Claris Oratoribus" Cicero makes Atticus say that 'A consummate judge of style (who is evidently intended for Cicero himself,) pronounces Caesar's Latin to be the most elegant, with one implied exception, that had ever been heard in the Senate or the Forum'.
Atticus then goes on to detail at full length a compliment which Caesar had paid to Cicero's powers of expression; and Brutus declares with enthusiasm that such praise, coming from such a quarter, is worth more than a Triumph, as Triumphs were then given; and inferior in value only to the honours which were voted to the statesman who had baffled Catiline.