An extraordinary turn upon the words is that in Ovid's "Epistolae
Heroidum" of Sappho to Phaon:-


"Si, nisi quae forma poterit te digna videri,
Nulla futura tua est, nulla futura tua est."


Lastly a turn, which I cannot say is absolutely on words--for the
thought turns with them--is in the fourth Georgic of Virgil, where
Orpheus is to receive his wife from hell on express condition not to
look on her till she was come on earth:-


"Cum subita incautum dementia cepit amantem;
Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere Manes."


I will not burthen your lordship with more of them, for I write to a
master who understands them better than myself; but I may safely
conclude them to be great beauties. I might descend also to the
mechanic beauties of heroic verse; but we have yet no English
Prosodia, not so much as a tolerable dictionary or a grammar (so
that our language is in a manner barbarous); and what Government
will encourage any one, or more, who are capable of refining it, I
know not: but nothing under a public expense can go through with
it. And I rather fear a declination of the language than hope an
advancement of it in the present age.

I am still speaking to you, my lord, though in all probability you