The shadow then thrown across-- "Sed _frons_ laeta parum"-- is well given, with a variation, by-- "But gloomy were his _eyes_." The lightlessness is feelingly placed where the chief light should be. The unequalled "Ostendent terris hunc tantum Fata," so fully signifying the magnitude of the gift offered and withdrawn--so sadly the brief promise, and all so concisely, meets with a soft and bright rendering in "The _blissful vision_ of a day." But Dryden's "shown _on_ earth," less positively affirms the loss fallen upon the earth, than the Latin "shall show to the nations." The praise involving the recollection of the manners which were-- "Heu pietas! heu prisca fides! invictaque bello Dextera!" is given with admirable fervour. "Mirror of ancient faith, in early youth Undaunted worth! inviolable truth!" As for _those three words_ that smote, as the tradition goes, the heart of the too deeply concerned auditress, the bereaved mother herself, to swooning-- "_Tu Marcellus eris!_"-- they are no doubt, in their overwhelming simplicity, untransferable to our uncouth idiom; and our ears may thank Dryden for the skill with which, by a "New Marcellus," and an otherwise explanatory paraphrase, he has kept the Virgilian music. Meantime the passionate vehemence of the breaking away from that prophecy of intolerable grief--the call for the bestrewment of flowers-- "Manibus date lilia plenis," &c.-- _must_ be weakened, if the moment of the transition is to fall, as we see it in Dryden, at the interval between verse and verse, and not, as we have just seen it with Virgil, at the juncture within the verse of hemistich with hemistich. "Tu Marcellus eris.--Manibus date lilia plenis," &c. There is a pause in that line, during which the mother, had she not swooned, might have calmed her heart! It is usual to discover that Virgil wants originality--that he transcribes his battles from Homer. In truth, it was not easy, with fights of the Homeric ages, to do otherwise. However, Virgil has done otherwise, if any one will be at the pains to look. For instance, an incident, not in the battles by the Xanthus, is the following:-- A powerful Tuscan warrior, infuriated by the ill fighting of his men, distinguishes himself by an extraordinary feat. Clasping round the body, and so unhorsing a lighter antagonist, he rides off with him; snaps the javelin, which his captive still grasps, near the head, and with its point probes and aims for a vulnerable place. The unfortunate Latine, as he lies across the horse's neck, struggles, and will baffle the deathly blow. Landseer could suggest no more vivid comparison, than one which leaps into your own imagination--a snake soused upon by an eagle.