Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn.
The first, in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next, in majesty; in both, the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, she joined the former two.

John Dryden

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lines-printed-under-the-engraved-portrait-of-milton-in-tonson-s-folio-edition-of-the-paradise-lost-1688/