i.e.
“If with earth heaven should mingle and the sea with heaven,
The sun with Erebus, light with darkness, the earth with the pole,
Should the four elements of the world in commixture fight,
Dry things with the moist and cold things with the hot,
Into ancient chaos at last all things would be confounded
As when God as yet unknown was the soul of the globe.
Such is the confusion of all mundane affairs,
At what time soever Justice the queen lies concealed.”
Whitney (p. 122), borrowing this idea and extending it, works it out with more than his usual force and skill, and dedicates his stanzas to Windham and Flowerdewe, two eminent judges of Elizabeth’s reign,—but his amplification of the thought is to a great degree peculiar to himself. Ovid, indeed, is his authority for representing the elements in wild disorder, and the peace and the beauty which ensued,—