Page 280 foll.
In translating the description of the shield, I have endeavoured to bear in mind, what I believe to be of great importance to the interpretation of the passage, that the various events of Roman history are represented, not in the precise way in which they are likely to have happened historically, but in the form supposed to be best adapted to tell the story to the eye. So the epithets do not characterise the persons or things as they are in themselves, but as they appear on the shield: e.g., the Gauls' hair is called golden because it is actually of gold.
Page 297.
'No after day
This hour's fair promise shall betray.'
'All, all my life, replies the youth, shall aim,
Like this one hour, at everlasting fame.' Pitt
Page 300.
'The maddening fever of the steel.'
I hope it will not be supposed that I mean 'fever of the steel' as a version of 'cupidine ferri.' There is another suspicion of the kind which I feel almost ashamed to rebut, in p. 359, where, though 'encumbered and unstrung' is I trust a tolerable equivalent for 'inutilis inque ligatus,' 'inligatus' is not intended to be represented by 'unstrung.'
Page 304.
'Then, pierced to death, asleep he fell
On the dead breast he loved so well.'
'Then, quiet, on his bleeding bosom fell,
Content in death to be revenged so well.' Dryden.
Page 311.
'What God, what madness brings you here
To taste of our Italian cheer?'
'What noble Lucumo comes next
To taste our Roman cheer?' Macaulay's Lays.
