,
And I stood looking on."

We meet with the same heroic sentiment in Virgil:

_Non pudet_, _O Rutuli_, _cunctis pro talibus unam_
_Objectare animam_? _numerone an viribus aequi_
_Non sumus_?

_AEn._ xii. 229

For shame, Rutilians, can you hear the sight
Of one exposed for all, in single fight?
Can we before the face of heav'n confess
Our courage colder, or our numbers less?

DRYDEN.

What can be more natural, or more moving, than the circumstances in which
he describes the behaviour of those women who had lost their husbands on
this fatal day?

Next day did many widows come
Their husbands to bewail;
They wash'd their wounds in brinish tears,
But all would not prevail.

Their bodies bathed in purple blood,
They bore with them away;
They kiss'd them dead a thousand times,
When they were clad in clay.

Thus we see how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arise from the
subject, are always simple, and sometimes exquisitely noble; that the
language is often very sounding, and that the whole is written with a
true poetical spirit.

If this song had been written in the Gothic manner which is the delight
of all our little wits, whether writers or readers, it would not have hit
the taste of so many ages, and have pleased the readers of all ranks and
conditions. I shall only beg pardon for such a profusion of Latin
quotations; which I should not have made use of, but that I feared my own
judgment would have looked too singular on such a subject, had not I
supported it by the practice and authority of Virgil.

A DREAM OF THE PAINTERS.

--_Animum pictura pascit inani_.

VIRG., _AEn._ i. 464.

And with the shadowy picture feeds his mind.

When the weather hinders me from taking my diversions without-doors, I
frequently make a little party, with two or three select friends, to
visit anything curious that may be seen under cover. My principal
entertainments of this nature are pictures, insomuch that when I have
found the weather set in to be very bad, I have taken a whole day's
journey to see a gallery that is furnished by the hands of great masters.
By this means, when the heavens are filled with clouds, when the earth
swims in rain, and all nature wears a lowering countenance, I withdraw
myself from these uncomfortable scenes, into the visionary worlds of art;
where I meet with shining landscapes, gilded triumphs,