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XXII.
Led[1] by the God through Midnight's blackest gloom,
The Warrior Mice a bold Excursion make;
The Stalks of Beans,now past their flow'ry bloom,
Gnawn sheer for Greaves th' audacious Spoilers take:
215 Squadrons well-booted! Lo, a nobler Prey
The Trunk of Elimouser spread the Land:
Home they with Toil the spacious Hide convey,
Which Tychius, Prince of Leather-dressers, tann'd:
A Mouse far-fam'd; this for their Shields they bore,
220 As erst Nemean Spoils renown'd Alcides wore.
Led[1] by the God through Midnight's blackest gloom,
The Warrior Mice a bold Excursion make;
The Stalks of Beans,now past their flow'ry bloom,
Gnawn sheer for Greaves th' audacious Spoilers take:
215 Squadrons well-booted! Lo, a nobler Prey
The Trunk of Elimouser spread the Land:
Home they with Toil the spacious Hide convey,
Which Tychius, Prince of Leather-dressers, tann'd:
A Mouse far-fam'd; this for their Shields they bore,
220 As erst Nemean Spoils renown'd Alcides wore.
- ↑ v. 211. Led.] An Epic Poet should order the Machines so, that his Action should stand in no need of them. How many Gods does Virgil make use of to raise a storm, which happened at the rising of Orion? 'Tis well observed, Dij nisi datâ occasione nocere non possunt. Bossu. Thus the Mice might have gnaw'd a few Bean-stalks without any Assistance from two Divinities, but then the Action had not been so fit for the Epopea.
XXIII.
