Objice, et illa tui mœnia Martis ait
Sit Pelago Tibrim præfers, urbem aspice utramque
Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse Deos.
And now really, if the subject did not bribe me to admiration of them, I should have much ado to think these six lines better worth fifty pounds a piece, the price Sannazarius was paid for them, than many lines I have read; as mythological allusions are always cheaply obtained, and this can hardly be said to run with any peculiar happiness: for if Mars built the Wall, and Jupiter founded the Capitol, how could Neptune justly challenge this last among all people, to look on both, and say, That men built Rome, but the Gods founded Venice. Had he said, that after all their pains, this was the manner in which those two cities would in future times strike all impartial observers, it would have been enough; and it would have been true, and when fiction has done its best,
Le vray seul est aimable[33].
Here, however, is the best translation or imitation I can make, of the best praise ever given to this justly celebrated city. Baron Cronthal, the learned librarian of Brera, gave me, when at Milan, the epigram, and persuaded me to try at a translation, but I never could succeed till I had been upon the grand canal.
When Neptune first with pleasure and surprise,
Proud from her subject sea saw Venice rise;
Let Jove, said he, vaunt his fam’d walls no more,