Although Swift's words on the preceding page shew that he knew how to appreciate Virgil as the 'wielder of the noblest measure ever moulded by the lips of man,' he yet sympathises with the taste of his own age in his admiration of the rhetorical impetuosity of Lucan's style, and perhaps insufficiently observed those defects which have caused Lucan's fame to decay. Swift's description of Lucan's style, however, is apt, and implies some hint of condemnation. According to Quintilian, Lucan was a model for the imitation of orators as much as for that of poets.