I have no doubt that Mr Alison distressed himself with "Adde." It is a word from a merchant's counting-house, reckoning up his gains. And so much the better. Virgil is making out the balance-sheet of Italy—he is inventorying her wealth. Mr Alison would have every word away from reality. Not so the Poet. Every now and then, they—the Poets—amuse themselves with dipping their pencils into the real, the common, the everyday, the homely. By so doing they arrest belief, which above everything they desire to hold fast. I should not wonder if you might catch Spenser at it, even. Shakspeare is full of it. There is nothing else prosaic in the passage; and if Virgil had had the bad taste to say "Ecce" instead of "Adde," I suppose no fault would have been found.
SEWARD.
But what can Mr Alison mean by the charge of tameness and vulgarity?
NORTH.
I have told you, sir.
SEWARD.
You have not, sir.
NORTH.
I have, sir.
SEWARD.