THE FARMER'S LIFE. 93 



eases." Let it be added as a more modern truism, that many 

 tastes bring many miseries. 



Dr. Earle says, in this direction, — 



" T sincerely believe, that just in proportion as the farmers and their 

 families throw off the habits of industry, frugality, and simplicity, 

 characteristic of their fathers, and adopt the manifold luxuries and 

 extravagances and follies of the present day, will insanity (pari passu) 

 increase among them. Industry, perhaps, has not greatly diminished 

 among the agriculturists ; but in a large measure it is directed into 

 another channel, and directed to a different end. I take it, that, among 

 farmers of the present day, there is fivefold the work, and hard work 

 too, done within doors, for the sake of keeping up appearances, and 

 making as much show as the richest of their neighbors, that there was 

 fifty years ago." 



Away back among the centuries, before the time when the 

 Saviour of mankind appeared on earth, when the Emperor 

 Augustus became master of the Roman world, there lived a 

 pure-minded Latin poet who evidently would know nothing 

 about the sensuality, profligacy, and extravagance of his 

 times, but who enjoyed the simplicity of the farmer's life and 

 the rural pleasures and pastimes connected with it. To this 

 Virgil, whom every college-boy has read, admired, and re- 

 membered, we are indebted for the greatest of didactic poems 

 ever written, and known as " The Georgics," which liter- 

 ally means a poem on the working and use of the land on 

 which we live. Of this poem one author says, "In mere 

 point of style it is the most perfect piece, perhaps, of Roman 

 literature." 



And, aside from its style, we cannot to-day fail to admire 

 it, because in it is the glorification of manual labor, and 

 labor connected with the farm and the farmer's life. 



From the ploughing of the land, the planting of the seed, 

 the ravages of birds, insects, and quadrupeds, the harvests, 

 the care of neat-stock, the raising of bees, to the culture 

 of the grape-vine, and the social pleasures of the Italian 

 rustic's home, we find this genial poet, in his easy and attrac- 

 tive style, ready to advise and instruct his readers. And 

 one critic says of him, " There is in Virgil a vein of thought 

 and sentiment more devout, more humane, more akin to the 

 Christian, than is to be found in any other ancient poet, 

 Greek or Roman." One short extract, however, must suffice 



