Methinks Jupiter is twice apparent—the first time, as the President of the Storm, which is agreeable to the dictates of reason and necessity;—the second—to my fancy—as delighting himself in the conscious exertion of power. What is he splintering Athos, or Rhodope, or the Acroceraunians for? The divine use of the Fulmen is to quell Titans, and to kill that mad fellow who was running up the ladder at Thebes, Capaneus. Let the Great Gods find out their enemies now—find out and finish them—and enemies they must have not a few among those prostrate crowds—"per gentes humilis stravit pavor." But shattering and shivering the mountain tops—which, as I take it, is here the prominent affair—and, as I said, the true meaning of "dejicit"—is mere pastime—as if Jupiter Tonans were disporting himself on a holiday.
BULLER.
Oh! sir, you have exhausted the subject—if not yourself—and us;—I beseech you sit down;—see, Swing solicits you—and oh! sir, you—we—all of us will find in a few minutes' silence a great relief after all that thunder.
NORTH.
You remember Lucretius?
BULLER.
No, I don't. To you I am not ashamed to confess that I read him with some difficulty. With ease, sir, do you?
NORTH.
I never knew a man who did but Bobus Smith; and so thoroughly was he imbued with the spirit of the great Epicurean, that Landor—himself the best Latinist living—equals him with Lucretius. The famous Thunder passage is very fine, but I cannot recollect every word; and the man who, in recitation, haggles and boggles at a great strain of a great poet deserves death without benefit of clergy. I do remember, however, that he does not descend from his elevation with such ease and grace as would have satisfied Henry Home and Hugh Blair—for he has so little notion of true dignity as to mention rain, as Virgil afterwards did, in immediate connexion with thunder.
"Quo de concussu sequitur gravis imber et uber,
Omnis utei videatur in imbrem vortier æther,
Atque ita præcipitans ad diluviem revocare."