Il dechire, il devore Le reptile acharne qui le combat encore; Il le perce, il le tient sous ses ongles vainqueurs; Par cent coups redoubles il venge ses douleurs.
Le monstre, en expirant, se debat, se replie; Il exhale en poisons les restes de sa vie; Et l'aigle, tout sanglant, fier et victorieux, Le rejette en fureur, et plane au haut des cieux." Virgil's version, AEneid, lib.xi., 751: "Utque volans alte raptum quum fulva draconem Fert aquila, implicuitque pedes, atque unguibus haesit Saucius at serpens sinuosa volumina versat, Arrectisque horret squamis, et sibilat ore, Arduus insurgens.

Illa haud minus urget obunco Luctantem rostro; simul aethera verberat alis." Dryden's translation from Virgil's AEneid, book xi.: "So stoops the yellow eagle from on high, And bears a speckled serpent through the sky; Fastening his crooked talons on the prey, The prisoner hisses through the liquid way; Resists the royal hawk, and though opprest, She fights in volumes, and erects her crest.
Turn'd to her foe, she stiffens every scale, And shoots her forky tongue, and whisks her threatening tail.
Against the victor all defence is weak.
Th' imperial bird still plies her with his beak: He tears her bowels, and her breast he gores, Then claps his pinions, and securely soars." Pitt's translation, book xi.: "As when th' imperial eagle soars on high, And bears some speckled serpent through the sky, While her sharp talons gripe the bleeding prey, In many a fold her curling volumes play, Her starting brazen scales with horror rise, The sanguine flames flash dreadful from her eyes She writhes, and hisses at her foe, in vain, Who wins at ease the wide aerial plain, With her strong hooky beak the captive plies, And bears the struggling prey triumphant through the skies." Shelley's version of the battle, The Revolt of Islam, canto i.: "For in the air do I behold indeed An eagle and a serpent wreathed in fight, And now relaxing its impetuous flight, Before the aerial rock on which I stood The eagle, hovering, wheeled to left and right, And hung with lingering wings over the flood, And startled with its yells the wide air's solitude "A shaft of light upon its wings descended, And every golden feather gleamed therein-- Feather and scale inextricably blended The serpent's mailed and many-colored skin Shone through the plumes, its coils were twined within By many a swollen and knotted fold, and high And far, the neck receding lithe and thin, Sustained a crested head, which warily Shifted and glanced before the eagle's steadfast eye.
"Around, around, in ceaseless circles wheeling, With clang of wings and scream, the eagle sailed Incessantly--sometimes on high concealing Its lessening orbs, sometimes, as if it failed, Drooped through the air, and still it shrieked and wailed, And casting back its eager head, with beak And talon unremittingly assailed The wreathed serpent, who did ever seek Upon his enemy's heart a mortal wound to wreak "What life, what power was kindled, and arose Within the sphere of that appalling fray! For, from the encounter of those wond'rous foes, A vapor like the sea's suspended spray Hung gathered; in the void air, far away, Floated the shattered plumes; bright scales did leap, Where'er the eagle's talons made their way, Like sparks into the darkness; as they sweep, Blood stains the snowy foam of the tumultuous deep.
"Swift chances in that combat--many a check, And many a change--a dark and wild turmoil; Sometimes the snake around his enemy's neck Locked in stiff rings his adamantine coil, Until the eagle, faint with pain and toil, Remitted his strong flight, and near the sea Languidly fluttered, hopeless so to foil His adversary, who then reared on high His red and burning crest, radiant with victory.
"Then on the white edge of the bursting surge, Where they had sunk together, would the snake Relax his suffocating grasp, and scourge The wind with his wild writhings; for, to break That chain of torment, the vast bird would shake The strength of his unconquerable wings As in despair, and with his sinewy neck Dissolve in sudden shock those linked rings, Then soar--as swift as smoke from a volcano springs.
"Wile baffled wile, and strength encountered strength, Thus long, but unprevailing--the event Of that portentous fight appeared at length.
Until the lamp of day was almost spent It had endured, when lifeless, stark, and rent, Hung high that mighty serpent, and at last Fell to the sea, while o'er the continent, With clang of wings and scream, the eagle past, Heavily borne away on the exhausted blast." I have repudiated the adverse criticism on Cicero's poetry which has been attributed to Juvenal; but, having done so, am bound in fairness to state that which is to be found elsewhere in any later author of renown as a classic.

In the treatise De Oratoribus, attributed to Tacitus, and generally published with his works by him--a treatise commenced, probably, in the last year of Vespasian's reign, and completed only in that of Domitian--Cicero as a poet is spoken of with a severity of censure which the writer presumes to have been his recognized desert.

"For Caesar," he says, "and Brutus made verses, and sent them to the public libraries; not better, indeed, than Cicero, but with less of general misfortune, because only a few people knew that they had done so." This must be taken for what it is worth.

The treatise, let it have been written by whom it might, is full of wit, and is charming in language and feeling.