The analytical rules of rhetoric were growing ever more intricate and time-wasting, and how pedantic they were even before Vergil's childhood may be seen by a glance into the anonymous Auctor ad Herennium.

In other instances, the congestion of the optic nerve is so serious as to involve a progressive wasting of that organ, producing at first a hazy dimness of vision which gradually becomes worse and worse, till total blindness may ensue.

Science volunteered the explanation, that alcohol supplied a hydro-carbonaceous nutriment similar to that furnished by the cod-liver oil, which, serving as fuel, spared the wasting of the tissues, just in proportion to its own consumption and assimilation.

Death stretches o'er the plain 50 Wide-wasting, and grim slaughter red with blood: Urged on by hunger keen, they wound, they kill, Their rage licentious knows no bound; at last Incumbered with their spoils, joyful they bear Upon their shoulders broad, the bleeding prey.