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The reports were so drawn that Barere was afterwards accused of having dishonestly sacrificed the interests of the public to the tastes of the court. To one of these reports he had the inconceivable folly and bad taste to prefix a punning motto from Virgil, fit only for such essays as he had been in the habit of composing for the Floral Games "Si canimus sylvas, sylvae sint Consule dignae."
Psalm LXIV. and the scrap entitled Philosophus ad Regem Quendam, &c.; after which are the two Latin pieces, Ad Salsillum and Mansus, written in Italy, and the Epitaphium Damonis, written immediately after the return to England. This last stands a little apart from the body of the "Sylvae," as if Milton attached a peculiar sacredness to it.
I own, I have often thought, if Statius had ventured no farther than Ovid or Claudian, he would have succeeded better; for his Sylvae are, in my opinion, much better than his Thebais." "I believe I was of the same opinion formerly," said the author. "And for what reason have you altered it?" cries Booth.
It requires consummate prudence and a vast fund of true information in order to draw just conclusions on this important subject. Phaeton, by awkward driving, set the world on fire: "Sylvae cum montibus ardent." Daedalus gave his son a pair of wings without considering the consequence; the boy flew out of all bounds, lost his wings, and tumbled into the sea: Icarus, Icariis nomina fecit aquis.
Mutio's "Meditations" are no meditations on Cornelius Tacitus but Poggio Bracciolini; for they are not meditations upon all the historical productions that pass under the name of Tacitus, not even upon the whole of the Annals, but only the first book of it; almost every passage of which, certainly, every sentiment is elucidated, or rather, expatiated upon with signal originality and shrewdness of view, so as to have won the admiration and praise in no fewer than five of his epigrams of Benedetto Sossago, Mutio's fellow-countryman and contemporary, well skilled in scholastic acquirements, philosophy and theology, a doctor of the Ambrosian College at Milan, and a writer distinguished principally for poems in Latin, "Sylvae"; "Opuscula Sacra"; two books of "Odes"; seven books of "Epigrams"; and according to the Abbot Picinelli, in his "Atenco de i Letterati Milanesi", Sossago would have added to these an epic about Borromeo, had he not died in the midst of composing the "Caroleis", which was to have made his name a "familiar household word" to all posterity.
But, in good earnest, as the arm when it is advanced to strike, if it miss the blow, and goes by the wind, it pains us; and as also, that, to make a pleasant prospect, the sight should not be lost and dilated in vague air, but have some bound and object to limit and circumscribe it at a reasonable distance. "Ventus ut amittit vires, nisi robore densa Occurrant sylvae, spatio diffusus inani."
He then turns his thoughts on every side, in quest of something that may solace or amuse him: he proposes happiness to himself, first in one scene and then in another: and at last finds that nothing will satisfy: Jam neque Hamodryades rursum, nec carmina nobis Ipsa placent: ipsoe rursum concedite sylvae.
Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society London, 1903 Hoc erat in votis: Modus agri non ila magnus Hortus ubi, et leclo vicinus aqua fons; Et paululum sylvae superhis forel.
Accordingly, all his Latin poems in that kind of verse having been included in the Elegiarum Liber, all his other Latin poems, not in that kind of verse, but either in Hexameter pure or in rarer metres, together with two fragments of Greek verse, are regarded as "Sylvae," and constitute the distinct SYLVARUM LIBER which ends the volume.
First among the "Sylvae" come the six Latin poems of the Cambridge period In obitum Procancellarii Medici, In Quintum Novembris, In obitum Praesulis Eliensis, Naturam non pati Senium, De Idea Platonica quemadmodum Aristoteles intellexit, and Ad Patrem; then, by way of typographic interruption, come the two scraps of Greek verse viz.
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