at; et niveis hinc atque hinc Diva lacertis
Cunctantem amplexu molli fovet. Ille repente
Accepit solitam flammam; notusque medullas
Intravit calor, et labefacta per ossa cucurrit
Non secus atque olim tonitru, cum rupta corusco
Ignea rima micans percurrit lumine nimbos.
. . . . . . Ea verba loquutus,
Optatos dedit amplexus; placidumque petivit
Conjugis infusus gremio per membra soporem."

["The goddess spoke, and throwing round him her snowy arms in soft
embraces, caresses him hesitating. Suddenly he caught the wonted
flame, and the well-known warmth pierced his marrow, and ran
thrilling through his shaken bones: just as when at times, with
thunder, a stream of fire in lightning flashes shoots across the
skies. Having spoken these words, he gave her the wished embrace,
and in the bosom of his spouse sought placid sleep."
--AEneid, viii. 387 and 392.]

All that I find fault with in considering it is, that he has represented
her a little too passionate for a married Venus; in this discreet kind of
coupling, the appetite is not usually so wanton, but more grave and dull.
Love hates that people should hold of any but itself, and goes but
faintly to work in familiarities derived from any other title, as
marriage is: alliance, dowry, therein sway by reason, as much or more
than grace and beauty. Men do not marry for themselves, let them say
what they will; they marry as much or more for their posterity and
family; the custom and interest of marriage concern our race much more
than us; and therefore it is, that I like to have a match carried on by a
third hand rather than a man's own, and by another man's liking than that
of the party himself; and how much is all this opposite to the
conventions of love? And also it is a kind of incest to employ in this
venerable and sacred alliance the heat and extravagance of amorous
licence, as I think I have said elsewhere. A man, says Aristotle, must
approach his wife with prudence and temperance, lest in dealing too
lasciviously with her, the extreme pleasure make her exceed the bounds of
reason. What he says upon the account of conscience, the physicians say
upon the account of health: "that a pleasure excessively lascivious,
voluptuous, and frequent, makes the seed too hot, and hinders
conception": 'tis said, elsewhere, that to a languishing intercourse, as