["He let loose his whole fury.”—­AEneid, xii. 499.]

he put her to death, and with her a great number of those with whom she had intelligence, and even one of them who could not help it, and whom she had caused to be forced to her bed with scourges.

What Virgil says of Venus and Vulcan, Lucretius had better expressed of a stolen enjoyment betwixt her and Mars: 

              “Belli fera moenera Mavors
               Armipotens regit, ingremium qui saepe tuum se
               Rejictt, aeterno devinctus vulnere amoris
                    ............................ 
               Pascit amore avidos inhians in te, Dea, visus,
               Eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore
               Hunc tu, Diva, tuo recubantem corpore sancto
               Circumfusa super, suaveis ex ore loquelas
               Funde.”

["Mars, the god of wars, who controls the cruel tasks of war, often reclines on thy bosom, and greedily drinks love at both his eyes, vanquished by the eternal wound of love:  and his breath, as he reclines, hangs on thy lips; bending thy head over him as he lies upon thy sacred person, pour forth sweet and persuasive words.”  —­Lucretius, i. 23.]

When I consider this rejicit, fiascit, inhians, ynolli, fovet, medullas, labefacta, pendet, percurrit, and that noble circumfusa, mother of the pretty infuses; I disdain those little quibbles and verbal allusions that have since sprung up.  Those worthy people stood in need of no subtlety to disguise their meaning; their language is downright, and full of natural and continued vigour; they are all epigram; not only the tail, but the head, body, and feet.  There is nothing forced, nothing languishing, but everything keeps the same pace: 

     “Contextus totes virilis est; non sunt circa flosculos occupati.”

     ["The whole contexture is manly; they don’t occupy themselves with
     little flowers of rhetoric.”—­Seneca, Ep., 33.]

’Tis not a soft eloquence, and without offence only; ’tis nervous and solid, that does not so much please, as it fills and ravishes the greatest minds.  When I see these brave forms of expression, so lively, so profound, I do not say that ’tis well said, but well thought.  ’Tis the sprightliness of the imagination that swells and elevates the words: 

“Pectus est quod disertum Tacit.”

          ["The heart makes the man eloquent.”—­Quintilian, x. 7.]

Our people call language, judgment, and fine words, full conceptions.  This painting is not so much carried on by dexterity of hand as by having the object more vividly imprinted in the soul.  Gallus speaks simply because he conceives simply:  Horace does not content himself with a superficial expression; that would betray him; he sees farther and more clearly into things; his mind breaks into and rummages all the magazine of words and figures wherewith to express