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If ever the sic vos non vobis was applicable, it certainly is to that village of Waterloo. Waterloo took no part, and lay half a league from the scene of action.
I grant there should be something coming to Mr Blackwood for the thousands that profit by his labours in America but if it can't be so, let the glory suffice him, and let Sic vos non vobis be his song of patient resignation. The parallel between his case and that of the Virgilian sufferers, is perfect. Who concentrates more pungency, or collects more sweets than the busy bee?
ceteraque gravissime, notum enim vobis carmen est, et tamen ipsius Appi exstat oratio.
Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at truth. It is, indeed, as that quaint and rare old discourse, "A Summons for Sleepers," hath it, "no doubt a thankless office, and a verie unthriftie occupation; veritas odium parit, truth never goeth without a scratcht face; he that will be busie with vae vobis, let him looke shortly for coram nobis."
We see the same phenomenon in our own day. The Christian churches are assimilating as rapidly as their formula will permit, the new light and the more generous moral ideas and the higher spirituality of teachers who have abandoned all churches, and who are systematically denounced as enemies of the souls of men. Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes!
Certainly, after my proofs of loyalty, which a year afterwards procured for me the honour of being outlawed in quite a special way, I had reason to complain, and I might have said 'Sic vos non vobis' as justly as Virgil when he alluded to the unmerited favours lavished by Augustus on the Maevii and Bavii of his time. The measures of Government soon excited complaints in every quarter.
The panelling was of Italian intarsia work inlaid with a renaissance design portraying the tale of Cupid and Psyche; on the final panel Jupiter was handing the cup of ambrosia to Psyche with the words, 'Sume, Psyche, et immortalis esto, nec unquam digridietur a tuo nexu Cupido, sed istae vobis erunt perpetuae nuptiae'; the floor was formed of parquetry, and the rugs above were of fine Persian workmanship.
Virgil, provoked at the falsehood of the impostor, again wrote the verses on some conspicuous part of the palace, and under them the following line: Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honorem; I wrote the verse, another filched the praise; with the beginning of another line in these words: Sic vos, non vobis, Not for yourselves, you repeated four times.
The sic vos, non vobis of the poet was once again to find an exemplification in this circumstance.
In the meantime it is Sic vos non vobis but who cares a farthing? If Boney succeeds, we will give these affairs a blue eye, and I will wrestle stoutly with them, although "My banks they are covered with bees," or rather with wasps. A very tough day's work. April 12. Ha-a-lt as we used to say, my proof-sheets being still behind.
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