On a different plane is Dante’s lamentation in Ch. xii. over the decay of literary culture in Sicily since the glorious days of Frederic and Manfred, which gave the title “Sicilianum” to the work of Dante’s predecessors in the vernacular: a passage (to me at least) somewhat obscure, in which Frederic II of Sicily, Charles II of Naples, Azzo Marquis of Este, and John Marquis of Montferrat are accused of blood-thirstiness, treachery and avarice: “Venite carnifices; venite attriplices; venite avaritiae sectatores....”[156] Turning to Bk. II we find the same Azzo ironically praised in Chapter vi., in a “copy-book phrase” of which the incidental introduction gives point to the satire: “Laudabilis discretio marchionis Estensis et sua magnificentia preparata cunctis, cunctis illum facit esse dilectum.” More delightful still is a sentence which closely follows, quoted solemnly like the former merely as an example of good phraseology appropriate to a lofty subject, in which Charles of Valois plays the _rôle_ of a “second Totila,” and his calamitous dealings with Florence (including, presumably, Dante’s own banishment) are adduced as a fitting prelude to his futile descent upon Sicily. “Ejecta maxima parte florum de sinu tuo, Florentia, nequicquam Trinacriam Totila secundus adivit.”[157] Earlier in the book there is another humorous touch with which we may conclude our list, at the risk, perchance, of an anti-climax. A passage near the end of Chapter i. recalls, in a curious way, a line from the _Epistles_ of Horace. Dante, having premised that every one should adorn (_exornare_) his verses as far as possible, goes on to point out that there are limits beyond which adornment becomes incongruous and absurd. “We do not speak of an ox caparisoned like a horse or a belted pig as _ornatus_; we laugh at them, and would rather apply the word _deturpatus_.” This _bos ephippiatus_ most aptly typifies incongruity of adornment. In Horace’s well-known line— Optat ephippia bos piger, optat arare caballus,[158] the point of the satire is different. It is the Roman poet’s favourite theme of universal discontent—each envying another’s lot. In Dante’s phrase we may perhaps detect an unconscious or semi-conscious adoption or adaptation of a classical image: parallel, in a humble way, with those splendid thefts from Virgil and Ovid with which he has enriched the _Divina Commedia_: conceptions too unquestionably original in their new form to be classed as mere plagiarisms. “Cicero hath observed,” says the _Spectator_ of Nov. 5, 1714,[159] “that a jest is never uttered with a better grace than when it is accompanied with a serious countenance.”