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Non me tua fervida terrent Dicta; ... Dii me terrent, et Jupiter hostis. Two kinds of dilettanti, says Goethe, there are in poetry: he who neglects the indispensable mechanical part, and thinks he has done enough if he shows spirituality and feeling; and he who seeks to arrive at poetry merely by mechanism, in which he can acquire an artisan's readiness, and is without soul and matter.

'Ione, said Apaecides, drawing her towards him, and regarding her tenderly, 'can I think that this beautiful form, this kind heart, may be destined to an eternity of torment? 'Dii meliora! the gods forbid! said Ione, in the customary form of words by which her contemporaries thought an omen might be averted. The words, and still more the superstition they implied, wounded the ear of Apaecides.

The import of these words seems to point out the necessity of warmth and cleanliness to ladies in this condition. Besides the superior goddesses Jemo-Lucien, Diana Hythia, and Latona, who all presided at the birth, there were the goddesses Egeria, Prosa, and Manageneta, who with the Dii Nixii, had all the care of women in labour.

But, when he ascends to the dii majorum gentium, to those twelve gods of the supreme house, who may be called in respect of rank, the Paladins of the classical Pantheon, secret horror comes over him at the thought that demons, reflecting the worst aspects of brutal races, ever could have levied worship from his own. It is true they do so no longer as regards our planet.

Germani, gens sincera: habitus corporum. 5. Terrae natura: non aurum, non argentum, nec aestimatum. 6. Germanorum arma, equitatus, peditatus, ordo militiae: 7. reges, duces, sacerdotes: 8. feminarum virtus et veneratio: Veleda: Aurinia. 9. dii, sacra, simulacra nulla. 10. Auspicia, sortes: ex equis, e captivo praesagia. 11. Consultationes publicae et conventus. 12.

The pontiff directed him to take the gown called prætexta, and with his head covered and his hand thrust out under the gown to the chin, standing upon a spear placed under his feet, to say these words: "Janus, Jupiter, father Mars, Quirinus, Bellona, ye Lares, ye gods Novensiles, ye gods Indigetes, ye divinities, under whose power we and our enemies are, and ye dii Manes, I pray you, I adore you, I ask your favour, that you would prosperously grant strength and victory to the Roman people, the Quirites; and that ye may affect the enemies of the Roman people, the Quirites, with terror, dismay, and death.

Specta juvenis; et omen quidem Dii prohibeant; ceterum in ea tempora natus es, quibus firmare animum deceat constantibus exemplis. Tacit. Oppression and cruelty are not always necessary to despotical government; and even when present, are but a part of its evils.

The Dira only served to confirm him in his first opinion, that it was his destiny to die in the ensuing combat. And in this sense are those words of Virgil to be taken "Non me tua turbida virtus Terret, ait; dii me terrent, et Jupiter hostis." I wonder Ruaeus saw not this, where he charges his author so unjustly for giving Turnus a second sword to no purpose.

But I have since known clubs of fifty times the number, whose collected genius was not more than that of either of the Dii Majores of our Concord coterie. The fault was its too great concentration. It was not relaxation, as a club should be, but tension. Society is a play, a game, a tournament; not a battle. It is the easy grace of undress; not an intellectual, full-dress parade."

The third and fourth cantos of Childe Harold placed him on another platform, that of the Dii Majores of English verse. These cantos are separated from their predecessors, not by a stage, but by a gulf. Previous to their publication he had only shown how far the force of rhapsody could go; now he struck with his right hand, and from the shoulder.