Poetry has ever had that power over me from a child to transpierce and transport me; but this vivid sentiment that is natural to me has been variously handled by variety of forms, not so much higher or lower (for they were ever the highest of every kind), as differing in colour.  First, a gay and sprightly fluency; afterwards, a lofty and penetrating subtlety; and lastly, a mature and constant vigour.  Their names will better express them:  Ovid, Lucan, Virgil.

But our poets are beginning their career: 

         “Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel Caesare major,”

["Let Cato, whilst he live, be greater than Caesar.” 
—­Martial, vi. 32]

says one.

“Et invictum, devicta morte, Catonem,”

["And Cato invincible, death being overcome.” 
—­Manilius, Astron., iv. 87.]

says the second.  And the third, speaking of the civil wars betwixt Caesar and Pompey,

“Victrix causa diis placuit, set victa Catoni.”

["The victorious cause blessed the gods, the defeated one Cato. 
—­“Lucan, i. 128.]

And the fourth, upon the praises of Caesar: 

              “Et cuncta terrarum subacta,
               Praeter atrocem animum Catonis.”

["And conquered all but the indomitable mind of Cato.” 
—­Horace, Od., ii. 1, 23.]

And the master of the choir, after having set forth all the great names of the greatest Romans, ends thus: 

“His dantem jura Catonem.”

     ["Cato giving laws to all the rest.”—­AEneid, viii. 670.]

CHAPTER XXXVII

THAT WE LAUGH AND CRY FOR THE SAME THING

When we read in history that Antigonus was very much displeased with his son for presenting him the head of King Pyrrhus his enemy, but newly slain fighting against him, and that seeing it, he wept; and that Rene, Duke of Lorraine, also lamented the death of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, whom he had himself defeated, and appeared in mourning at his funeral; and that in the battle of D’Auray (which Count Montfort obtained over Charles de Blois, his competitor for the duchy of Brittany), the conqueror meeting the dead body of his enemy, was very much afflicted at his death, we must not presently cry out: 

              “E cosi avven, the l’animo ciascuna
               Sua passion sotto ’l contrario manto,
               Ricopre, con la vista or’chiara, or’bruna.”

["And thus it happens that the mind of each veils its passion under
a different appearance, and beneath a smiling visage, gay beneath a
sombre air.”—­Petrarch.]

When Pompey’s head was presented to Caesar, the histories tell us that he turned away his face, as from a sad and unpleasing object.  There had been so long an intelligence and society betwixt them in the management of the public affairs, so great a community of fortunes, so many mutual offices, and so near an alliance, that this countenance of his ought not to suffer under any misinterpretation, or to be suspected for either false or counterfeit, as this other seems to believe: