“From the want of sentiment and of moral associations, the descriptive language of the ancient poets is, in general, scanty and poor. It is for the most part drawn immediately from the perceptions of the senses, and has little to do with the invisible feelings and images, of which outward things become the symbols to a reflecting mind. It rarely gives them a moral being; its epithets are seldom imaginative; it paints to the eye; it calls up recollections of bodily rest and pleasure; but it does not often address the heart.
“Horace begins one of his odes thus:—
‘Vides, ut ulta stet nive candidum
Soracte; nec jam sustineant onus
Sylvæ laborantes, geluque
Flumina constiterint acuto?’
“The epithets white mountain, deep snow, sharp frost, are all taken without addition immediately from the perception of the senses; nor, considering the common prosaic use of laboro, in a similar sense, is the epithet labouring much more poetical; yet the passage is as striking of its kind as most that may be found in Latin poetry. The lines are thus rendered by Dryden,—
‘Behold yon mountain’s hoary height
Made higher with new mounts of snow;
Again behold the winter’s weight