The unhappy image in the second line is less calculated to excite compassion than disgust, and is singularly ill-suited to the tone of tenderness and delicacy which the Poet has everywhere else so successfully maintained, in describing the progress of the loathsome disease." The line here objected to is the life of the description—and instead of offence, it is the clenching of the pathos. First of all, it is that which the Poet always will have and the Critics wont—the Necessitated—the Thing itself—the Matter in hand. It shapes—features—characterises that particular Murrain. Leave it out—'the one Ox drops dead in the furrow, and the Ploughman detaches the other.' It's a great pity, and very surprising—but that is NO PLAGUE. Suddenly he falls, and blood and foam gush mixed with his expiring breath. That is a plague. It has terror—affright—sensible horror—life vitiated, poisoned in its fountains. Vomit—a settled word, and one of the foremost, of the reversed, unnatural vital function. Besides, it is the true and proper word. Besides, it is vivid and picturesque, being the word of the Mouth. Effundit (which they would prefer)—(I do not mean it would stand in the verse) is general—might be from the ears. Vomit in itself says mouth. The poor mouth! whose function is to breathe, and to eat grass, and to caress—the visible organ of life—of vivification—and now of mortification. Taken from the dominion of the holy powers, and given up to the dark and nameless destroyer. "Vomit ore cruorem!" The verse moans and groans for him—it may have in it a death-rattle. How much more helpless and hopeless the real picture makes Arator's distress! Now, "it tristis" comes with effect.
SEWARD.
Yes, Virgil, as in duty bound to do, faced the Cattle Plague in all its horrors. Had he not, he would have been false to Pales, the Goddess of Shepherds—to Apollo, who fed the herds of Admetus. So did his Master, Lucretius—whom he emulated—equalled, but not surpassed, in execution of the dismal but inevitable work. The whole land groaned under the visitation—nor was it confined to Cattle—it seemed as if the brute creation were about to perish. But his tender heart, near the close, singled out, from the thousands, one yoke of Steers—in two lines and a half told the death of one—in two lines and a half told the sadness of its owner—and in as many lines more told, too, of the survivor sinking, because his brother "was not"—and in as many more a lament for the cruel sufferings of the harmless creature—lines which, Scaliger says, he would rather have written than have been honoured by the Lydian or the Persian king.
BULLER.
Perhaps you have said enough, Seward. It might have been better, perhaps, to have recited the whole passage.
NORTH.
Here is a sentence or two about Homer.
BULLER.
Then you are off. Oh! sir—why not for an hour imitate that Moon and those Stars? How silently they shine! But what care you for the heavenly luminaries? In the majestic beauty of the nocturnal heavens vain man will not hold his peace.
SEWARD.