But if the Poet had writ (supposing the Verse would have allowed it)
Si vero Viciam seres————
the Reader would have understood him without going any farther; and it is easily perceiv'd the Verse would have been very flat to what it is now. This double Use of the Particles gives Strength to the Verse; because, as the Excellent Erythræus observes, the copulative Conjunctions are in Language of the same Use as Nerves in the Body, they serve to connect the Parts together; so that these Sorts of Verses which we are speaking of may be very properly called, Nervous Lines.
This Art Virgil most certainly learnt from Homer: for there is nothing more remarkable in Homer's Versification, nothing to which the Majesty of it is more owing, than this very thing, and I wonder none of his Commentators (that I have seen) have taken notice of it. There are four in the 23 first Lines of the Iliad, of this Kind. I will put the Latin for the sake of the generality of Readers.
Atridesque, rex virorum, et nobilis Achilles.
Redempturusque filiam, ferensque infinitum pretium liberationis,
Atridæque, et alii bene ocreati Achivi,
Reverendumque esse sacerdotem, et splendidum accipiendum pretium.
Clarke's Translation.
VI. I come now to the Collocatio Verborum, of which there is no occasion to give any more than one Instance: