in Old times all People were born Poets. ...[T]hey had no sooner drank a little freely, but they made Versesthe Ancients wrote always in Verse, whether they treated of Religion, Morality, Natural Philosophy or Astrology.It is very strange indeed that Poetry should be elder Brother to Prose... but it is very probable... precepts... were shap'd into measured lines, that they might be the more easily remembredPoetry had a much more serious beginning than is usually imagin'd, andthe Muses have of late days mightily deviated from their original Gravity
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle