[193] Disce, meo exemplo, formosis posse carere.
From my Example learn, To bear the Want of what has Pow'r to charm.
Nothing can be more ingenious. This single Line so teems with Thought, that it would bear, nay require a long Examination, to discover all its Beauties. At every Word some new Idea arises, which I shall, at present, leave to the Reflection of others, that I may not anticipate so great a Pleasure. Under this Head of delicate Thought, we may reckon that celebrated Compliment with which Horace begins his Epistle to Augustus:
[194] Cum tot sustineas, & tanta negotia solus, Res Italas armis tuteris, moribus ornes, Legibus emendes; in publica commoda peccem, Si longo sermone morer tua tempora, Cæsar.
When you alone sustain the weighty Cares Of all the World, and manage Peace and Wars: The Roman State by Virtue's Rules amend, Adorn with Manners, and with Arms defend; To write a long Discourse, and waste your Time, Against the publick Good, wou'd be a Crime. Creech.
The Address is as genteel as it is ingenious, and it is hard to say whether we should admire in it more the Poet, or the Courtier.
Strong Thoughts are such as strike us neither with Acuteness, their Suddenness, nor their Delicacy; but are full of Sense and Solidity, carry Weight in their Meaning, and sink deep in the Understanding. As in that of Virgil:
[195] Disce, Puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem, Fortunam ex aliis.
True Toil and Virtue learn, dear Youth, from me; Fortune from others.
For it is a great Mistake to think, that Gravity and Severity in Writing is inconsistent with Wit and Ingenuity. There's Elegance in moral and philosophical Reflections; and nothing can have more of it than those Sentences that are scatter'd up and down in the Narrations, but especially the Speeches, in Virgil. In the eleventh Æneis, the confederate Latin Princes deliberate in Council what Steps to take after their late Defeat; Turnus, in a Speech upon that Occasion, observes, that since they had Forces enough left to continue the War, they were not reduced to the sad Necessity of suing for Peace. The moral Reflection he introduces, will be clearer seen, by considering the Verses before and after it.