FLORENTINE SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING. 371 



ill. And through all such trouble which came upon me as I 

 was recovering, as if it meant to throw me back into the 

 grave, I held out and recovered, repeating always to myself, 

 or rather having always murmured in my ears, at every new 

 trial, one Latin line, 



Tu ne cede mails, sed contra fortior ito. 



Now I had got this line out of the tablet in the engraving of 

 Raphael's vision, and had forgotten where it came from. And 

 I thought I knew my sixth book of Virgil so well, that I never 

 looked at it again while I was giving these lectures at Oxford, 

 and it was only here at Assisi, the other day, wanting to look 

 more accurately at the first scene by the lake Avernus, that I 

 found I had been saved by the words of the Cumaean Sibyl. 

 35. "Quam tua te For tuna sinet," the completion of the 

 sentence, has yet more and continual teaching in it for me 

 now ; as it has for all men. Her opening words, which have 

 become hackneyed, and lost all present power through vulgar 

 use of them, contain yet one of the most immortal truths ever 

 yet spoken for mankind ; and they will never lose their power 

 of help for noble persons. But observe, both in that lesson, 

 " Facilis descensus Averni," etc. ; and in the still more pre- 

 cious, because universal, one on which the strength of Rome 

 was founded, the burning of the books, the Sibyl speaks 

 only as the voice of Nature, and of her laws ; not as a divine 

 helper, prevailing over death ; but as a mortal teacher warning 

 us against it, and strengthening us for our mortal time ; but 

 not for eternity. Of which lesson her own history is a part, 

 and her habitation by the Avernus lake. She desires im- 

 mortality, fondly and vainly, as we do ourselves. She receives, 

 from the love of her refused lover, Apollo, not immortality, 

 but length of life ; her years to be as the grains of dust in 

 her hand. And even this she finds was a false desire ; and 

 her wise and holy desire at last is to die. She wastes away ; 

 becomes a shade only, and a voice. The Nations ask her, 

 What wouldst thou ? She answers, Peace ; only let my last 

 tvords be true. " I/ultimo mie parlar sie verace." 



