Beware of expectations of Prose

Many writings both in verse and in prose, while still in the minds of their composers, have aroused high expectations; but when completed and shown to the world have won a repute far inferior to their promise. Isocrates. To Nicocles. Speech 2. Section 7.

Image: Page from the beginning of a 5th-century copy of Virgil's Ecologues. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Alonso de Mendoza.