Si fœtura gregem suppleverit, aureus esto.”
The poetical promises exceeded the clown’s means; neither Diana, nor the deity, odious to her, saw the promises fulfilled. The Apologist is merely taking advantage of a poetical license, a plenary indulgence in nonperformance. It is quite ridiculous to attempt to prove what Phidias and Praxiteles must have done, by what Virgil imagined. But as Mr Owen Jones delights in such quasi modern authorities, we venture to remind him of the bad taste of Horace, who loved the Parian marble; and to recommend him to consider in what manner white marble is spoken of by as good authority, Juvenal, who introduces it as most valued in his time—white statues.
“Et jam accurrit, qui marmora donet
Conferat impersas. Hic nuda et candida signa,
Hic aliquid præclarum Euphranoris et Polycleti.”
It may be as well to quote also what he says in reference to waxing statues:—
“Propter quæ fas est genua incerare Deorum.”
Upon which we find in a note—“Consueverant Deorum simulacra cera illinire (the old word of dispute) ibidemque affert illud Prudentii, lib. i., contra Symonachum,—
——‘Saxa illita ceris
Viderat, unguentoque Lares humescere nigros.’”