“Instabile est regnum quod non clementia firmat.”
“Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.”
Here are two famous verses, both often quoted, and one a commonplace
of literature. That they have passed into proverbs attests their merit
both in substance and in form. Something more than truth is needed for
a proverb. And so, also, something more than form is needed. Both must
concur. The truth must be expressed in such form as to satisfy the
requirements of Art.
Most persons, who have not occasionally indulged in such diversions,
if asked where these verses are to be found, would say at once that
it was in some familiar poet of school-boy days. Both have a sound
as of something heard in childhood. The latter is Virgilian in tone
and movement. More than once I have heard it insisted that it was by
Virgil. But nobody is able to find it there, although the opposite
dangers are represented in the voyage of Æneas:--
“Dextrum Scylla latus, lævum implacata Charybdis Obsidet.”[257]