being combined in one,
discharge their utmost force at the first onset,

"Irarumque omnes effundit habenas:"

["He let loose his whole fury."--AEneid, xii. 499.]

he put her to death, and with her a great number of those with whom she
had intelligence, and even one of them who could not help it, and whom
she had caused to be forced to her bed with scourges.

What Virgil says of Venus and Vulcan, Lucretius had better expressed of a
stolen enjoyment betwixt her and Mars:

"Belli fera moenera Mavors
Armipotens regit, ingremium qui saepe tuum se
Rejictt, aeterno devinctus vulnere amoris
............................
Pascit amore avidos inhians in te, Dea, visus,
Eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore
Hunc tu, Diva, tuo recubantem corpore sancto
Circumfusa super, suaveis ex ore loquelas
Funde."

["Mars, the god of wars, who controls the cruel tasks of war, often
reclines on thy bosom, and greedily drinks love at both his eyes,
vanquished by the eternal wound of love: and his breath, as he
reclines, hangs on thy lips; bending thy head over him as he lies
upon thy sacred person, pour forth sweet and persuasive words."
--Lucretius, i. 23.]

When I consider this rejicit, fiascit, inhians, ynolli, fovet, medullas,
labefacta, pendet, percurrit, and that noble circumfusa, mother of the
pretty infuses; I disdain those little quibbles and verbal allusions that
have since sprung up. Those worthy people stood in need of no subtlety
to disguise their meaning; their language is downright, and full of
natural and continued vigour; they are all epigram; not only the tail,
but the head, body, and feet. There is nothing forced, nothing
languishing, but everything keeps the same pace:

"Contextus totes virilis est; non sunt circa flosculos occupati."

["The whole contexture is manly; they don't occupy themselves with
little flowers of rhetoric."--Seneca, Ep., 33.]

'Tis not a soft eloquence, and without offence only; 'tis nervous and
solid, that does not so much please, as it fills and ravishes the
greatest minds. When I see these brave forms of expression, so lively,
so profound, I do not say that 'tis well said, but well thought. 'Tis
the sprightliness of the imagination that swells and elevates the words: