Condignum, et non inferius longè, arte modoque.
This is a simple fact, in the perusal of which the reader is struck with nothing else but the truth of the assertion. Mark how in the translation the same truth is conveyed in one of the finest figures of poetry:
with reluctant gaze
To these the genius of succeeding days
Looks dazzled up, and, as their glories spread,
Hides in his mantle his diminish’d head.
In the two following lines, Horace inculcates a striking moral truth; but the figure in which it is conveyed has nothing of dignity:
Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
Regumque turres.