VIRGIL AND SHAKESPEARE ON THE SITUATION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."1 SIR,—A few days ago, having to refer in public to the late war and our present hopes, I hit upon a sore Virgiliana which perhaps you will think worth printing. It occurs in Aeneid XII. :;03, where the great poet of Imperial Rome, recalling the deadly conflict between the Latins and the Trojans, cries out-
" Tanton' placuit concurrere motu, Juppiter, aeterna gentes in pace futures ?"
—or, as it appears in Pitt's version,-
" Was it thy will the nations should engage,
Great sire of Heaven, with such unbounded rage, Henceforth from war and violence to cease, ' Leagued in a bond of everlasting peace?"
It seemed to me at the time that the lines had a singular fit- ness, but my conceit in them is now gone, and I only quote them to prepare your palate for something far finer. In answering to the toast of his health on Monday the Lord Mayor of Birmingham concluded his speech by addressing to Mr. Chamberlain these words of Shakespeare:— . .
" God's benison go with you, and with those That would make good of bad and friends of foes."
Of all the London papers I have seen, the Times alone reports this ; but I trust, Sir, that you will reprint it, for those who
love a good quotation will find it hard to match.—I am, Sir,
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