Sperare nefas sit vatibus ultra. Nulla mora, ex illo in pejus ruere omnia visa, Degenerare animi, atque retro res lapsa referri. Hic namque ingenio confisus posthabet artem; Ille furit strepitu, tenditque æquare tubarum Voce sonos, versusque tonat sine more per omnes; Dant alii cantus vacuos, et inania verba Incassum, solâ capti dulcedine vocis. _Poemata Selecta_, p. 213. Cf. the advice (p. 214) to follow none but Virgil:-- Ergo ipsum ante alios animo venerare Maronem, Atque unum sequere, utque potes, vestigia serva.] [Footnote 447: Dona deûm Musæ: vulgus procul este profanum. _Poemata Selecta_, p. 224; and again, _ib._ p. 226:-- Tu Jovis ambrosiis das nos accumbere mensis; Tu nos diis æquas superis, &c.] It is difficult in a summary to do justice to this portion of Vida's poem. His description of the ideal epic is indeed nothing more or less than a refined analysis of the 'Æneid;' and students desirous of learning what the Italians of the sixteenth century admired in Virgil will do well to study its acute and sober criticism. A panegyric of Leo closes the second book. From this peroration some lines upon the woes of Italy may be read with profit, as proving that the nation, conscious of its own decline, was contented to accept the primacy of culture in exchange for independence:-- Dii Romæ indigetes, Trojæ tuque auctor, Apollo Unde genus nostrum coeli se tollit ad astra, Hanc saltem auferri laudem prohibete Latinis: Artibus emineat semper, studiisque Minervæ, Italia, et gentes doceat pulcherrima Roma; Quandoguidem armorum penitus fortuna recessit, Tanta Italos inter crevit discordia reges; Ipsi nos inter sacros distringimus enses, Nec patriam pudet externis aperire tyrannis.[448] [Footnote 448: 'Ye native gods of Rome! and thou, Apollo, Troy's founder! by whom our race is raised to heaven! let not at least this glory be withdrawn from Latium's children: may Italy for ever hold the heights of art and learning, and most beauteous Rome instruct the nations; albeit all success in arms be lost, so great hath grown the discord of Italia's princes. Yea, one against the other, we draw bloody swords, nor feel we any shame in calling foreign tyrants into our own land.'--_Poemata Selecta_, p. 245.] The third book treats of style and diction. To be clear and varied, to command metaphor and allusion, to choose phrases coloured by mythology and fancy, to suit the language to the subject, to vary the metrical cadence with the thought and feeling, and to be assiduous in the use of the file are mentioned as indispensable to excellence. A peroration on Virgil, sonorous and impassioned, closes the whole poem, which, rightly understood, is a monument erected to the fame of the Roman bard by the piety of his Italian pupil. The final lines are justly famous:--