_Te spectem, suprema mihi cum venerit hora,
Te teneam moriens deficiente manu._ Lib. i. El. i. 73.

Before my closing eyes dear Cynthia stand,
Held weakly by my fainting trembling hand.

To these lines Ovid thus refers in his Elegy on the death of Tibullus:

Cynthia discedens, Felicius, inquit, amata
Sum tibi; vixisti dum tuus ignis eram.
Cui Nemesis, quid, ait, tibi sint mea damna dolori?
Me tenuit moriens deficiente manu. Am. Lib. in. El. ix. 56.

Blest was my reign, retiring Cynthia cry'd;
Not till he left my breast, Tibullus dy'd.
Forbear, said Nemesis, my loss to moan,
The _fainting trembling hand_ was mine alone.

The beauty of this passage, which consists in the appropriation made by
Nemesis of the line originally directed to Cynthia, had been wholly
imperceptible to succeeding ages, had chance, which has destroyed so
many greater volumes, deprived us likewise of the poems of Tibullus.

[1] The obscurity of this philosopher's style is complained of by
Aristotle in his treatise on Rhetoric, iii. 5. We make the reference
with the view of recommending to attention the whole of that book,
which is interspersed with the most acute remarks, and with rules of
criticism founded deeply on the workings of the human mind. It is
undervalued only by those who have not scholarship to read it, and