But there is a passage which still more clearly, I think, marks the distinction between the rivus and the river. The poet invites Mæcenas to the country, and tells him,—
“Jam pastor umbras cum grege languido
Rivumque fessus querit, et horridi
Dumeta Silvani, caretque
Ripa vagis taciturna ventis.”
Now, if the shepherd had driven his flock to the river, all bleating and languid with heat, the bank of the river would scarcely have been taciturn; doubtless the shepherd sought the “fontem,” into which the water was conveyed, and under shade, a place not exposed to the sun, or the wind, as was the ripa, the river’s bank. And besides, in this passage, the rivos and the ripa are certainly spoken of as two separate places.
Here our friend and host began to mutter a little. He was evidently going over his model-farm, while we were at the Sabine. He now talked quicker—“John,” (so he always called his hind, his factotum,) “plant ’em a little farther apart, d’ye see, and trench up well.” “That’s the way.” “Now, John, d’ye know how—to clap an old head on young shoulders—why dig a trench the width of the spade, from the stem of an apple-tree, and fill up with good vegetable mould. First pollard your tree, John.” “That’s it, John.” This and more was said, with a few sleepy interruptions; he soon awoke, and said with an amusing indifference,—“Well, any more news of Catullus?”
Aquilius.—We left Catullus asleep some time ago, and thinking it probable that you and he might wake at the same time, we determined to wait for you both, and, in the meanwhile, we have been discussing a passage in Horace, of which, (for we will not now renew the discussion,) I will one day hear your opinion. A very favourite author, however, of yours, doubts the felicity of Horace in the choice of words.
Curate.—And in the structure of his sentences, and says, “How simple in comparison are Catullus and Lucretius.”
Gratian.—Indeed! now I think that is but finding one fault, for the choice of words and construction of sentences go pretty much together. An ill-constructed sentence can hardly have a good choice of words, for it is most probably unmusical, and that fault would make the choice a jumble. If the words were nonsense in Milton, the music of them would make you believe he could have used no other. They are breathed out so naturally; take the first line of Paradise Lost—it is in this manner perfect. Good words are, to good thoughts, what the stars are to the night, sunshine to the brook, flowers to the field, and foliage to the woods; clothing what is otherwise bare, giving glory to the dark, and to the great and spacious; investing the rugged with grace, and adding the vigour and motion of life to the inanimate, the motionless, and the solid. I must defend my friend Horace against all comers.
“—rura, quæ Liris quietâ
Mordet aquâ, taciturnus amnis.”
Is there a bad choice of words there? How insidiously the silent river indents the banks with its quiet water, and how true to nature! It is not your turbulent river that eats into the land, (it may overflow it,) but that ever heavy weight of the taciturn rivers, running not in a rocky bed, but through a deep soft soil.
Curate.—You are lucky in your quotation, for we were discussing some such matter. Horace is particularly happy in his river scenes. Did not he know the value of his own words—he thus speaks of them: