Cloris, as-tu vu des déesses
Avoir un air si facile et si doux?
Was not Aurora, and Venus, and Luna, and I know not how many more of the heathen deities, too easy of access to Tithonus, to Anchises, and to Endymion? Is there any thing more sparkish and better-humoured than Venus's accosting her son in the deserts of Libya? or than the behaviour of Pallas to Diomedes, one of the most perfect and admirable pieces of all the Iliads; where she condescends to raillé him so agreeably; and, notwithstanding her severe virtue, and all the ensigns of majesty with which she so terribly adorns herself, condescends to ride with him in his chariot? But the Odysseys are full of greater instances of condescension than this.
This brings to mind that famous passage of Lucan, in which he prefers Cato to all the gods at once:
Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni—
which Brebœuf has rendered so flatly, and which may be thus paraphrased:
Heaven meanly with the conqueror did comply;
But Cato, rather than submit, would die.[292]
It is an unpardonable presumption in any sort of religion, to compliment their princes at the expence of their deities.
But, letting that pass, this whole Eclogue is but a long paraphrase of a trite verse in Virgil, and Homer;
Nec vox hominem sonat: O Dea certe!
So true is that remark of the admirable Earl of Roscommon, if applied to the Romans, rather, I fear, than to the English, since his own death: