Arboribus; crescunt ipsæ, fœtuque gravantur.
Hinc alitur porro nostrum genus atque ferarum;
Hinc lætas urbeis puerûm florere videmus,
Frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique sylvas;
Hinc, fessæ pecudes, pingues per pabula læta,
Corpora deponunt, et candens lacteus humor
Uberibus manat distentis; hinc nova proles
Artubus infirmis teneras lasciva per herbas
Ludit, lacte mero menteis percussa novellas.”
“Whoever,” says Warton, “imagines, with Tully, that Lucretius had not a great genius[450], is desired to cast his eye on two pictures he has given us at the beginning of his poem,—the first, of Venus with her lover Mars, beautiful to the last [pg 262]degree, and more glowing than any picture painted by Titian; the second, of that terrible and gigantic figure the Demon of Superstition, worthy the energetic pencil of Michael Angelo. I am sure there is no piece by the hand of Guido, or the Carracci, that exceeds the following group of allegorical personages: