[196] Sin & Trojanis cum multo gloria venit Sanguine, sunt illis sua funera, parque per omnes Tempestas; cur indecores in limine primo Deficimus? cur ante tubam timor occupat artus? Multa dies, variusque labor mutabilis ævi, Rettulit in melius; multos alterna revisens Lusit, & in solido rursus fortuna locavit. Non erit auxilio nobis Ætolus, & Arpi? At Messapus erit, &c.
If Glory to our Foes Came purchas'd at a vast Expence of Blood: If they too have their Fun'rals; and thro' all The Tempest rag'd with equal Fury; why Faint we inglorious, in the first Attempt, And shrink with Fear before the Trumpet's Sound? Oft has Vicissitude of changeful Time By various Turns to better State restor'd Distress'd Affairs: Many with pleasing Sport Fortune, alternately revisiting, Has mock'd, and on a solid Base repos'd. Will not Ætolian Arpi give us Aid? Yet will Messapus, &c.
These echoing Turns, much affected by the Moderns, tho' little us'd by the Ancients, have sometimes their Beauty, sometimes not: I can by no means agree with a certain Writer of ours, who tells us, that there's only one Example of this Kind in Virgil, and instances in that of Orpheus looking back upon Eurydice:
[197] Cum subito incautum dementia cepit amantem, Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere Manes!
When suddenly a Frenzy seiz'd Th' unwary Lover; yet a venial Crime Cou'd aught be venial, when the Manes judge.
He might with more Justice have produced that famous Sentence in the second Æneis:
[198] Una salus victis, nullam sperare salutem.
To vanquish'd Men The only Safety is to hope for none.
Or those melodious Verses in the eighth Eclogue:
[199] Sævus amor docuit natorum sanguine matrem Commaculare manus: crudelis tu quoque mater; Crudelis mater magis an puer improbus ille? Improbus ille puer, crudelis tu quoque mater.