The artist had imperative reasons for not allowing the sufferings of his Laocoon to break out into cries. But if the poet had had before him in the marble this touching union of pain with beauty, he would certainly have been under no necessity of disregarding the idea of manly dignity and magnanimous patience arising from it and making his Laocoon suddenly startle us with that terrible cry. Richardson says that Virgil’s Laocoon needed to scream, because the poet’s object was not so much to excite compassion for him as to arouse fear and horror among the Trojans. This I am ready to grant, although Richardson appears not to have considered that the poet is not giving the description in his own person, but puts it into the mouth of Æneas, who, in his narration to Dido, spared no pains to arouse her compassion. The cry, however, is not what surprises me, but the absence of all intermediate stages of emotion, which the marble could not have failed to suggest to the poet if, as we are supposing, he had used that as his model. Richardson goes on to say, that the story of Laocoon was meant only as an introduction to the pathetic description of the final destruction of Troy, and that the poet was therefore anxious not to divert to the misfortunes of a private citizen the attention which should be concentrated on the last dreadful night of a great city.[46] But this is a painter’s point of view, and here inadmissible. In the poem, the fate of Laocoon and the destruction of the city do not stand side by side as in a picture. They form no single whole to be embraced at one glance, in which case alone there would have been danger of having the eye more attracted by the Laocoon than by the burning city. The two descriptions succeed each other, and I fail to see how the deepest emotion produced by the first could prejudice the one that follows. Any want of effect in the second must be owing to its inherent want of pathos. Still less reason would the poet have had for altering the serpents’ coils. In the marble they occupy the hands and encumber the feet, an arrangement not less impressive to the imagination than satisfactory to the eye. The picture is so distinct and clear that words can scarcely make it plainer than natural signs. Micat alter et ipsum Laocoonta petit, totumque infraque supraque Implicat et rabido tandem ferit ilia morsu. · · · · · At serpens lapsu crebro redeunte subintrat Lubricus, intortoque ligat genua infima nodo. These lines are by Sadolet. They would doubtless have come with greater picturesqueness from Virgil, had his fancy been fired by the visible model. Under those circumstances he would certainly have written better lines than those we now have of him. Bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis.