NORTH.
I have. "She" is really "He"—the Poet and not the Muse. I was rapt. He is thinking now, my dear Buller, of old strong-hearted Ennius—the heroic annalist, in soldierly rough verses, of younger heroic Rome. We may recollect, for the nonce, whatever is most English, and most Scottish, and most heroic, in those more musical "histories" of William, and of Walter.
TALBOYS.
We have done with education. We come to the Charity of the Muse. She visits the poor man's home and the sick-bed. One almost starts at the thought, in the midst of the smoke, and the wealth, and the uproar of Pagan Rome. Yet there the plain words are, "She (pardon me) comforts the indigent and the sick man." Is it not sic in orig.?
NORTH.
Sic.
BULLER.
Of her ministrations to the splendour of Arts and the luxury of Patrician feasts—of her Theatres, that spread laughter or tears over the dense myriads of the World's Metropolis—not a syllable. The innermost heart of the Poet must have held the chord that gave out the soft low sound—inopem solatur et ægrum. No introduction and no comment. A solitary, unpretending sentence or clause.
NORTH.
God bless you, my dear Buller.