20 THE CAUSES WHICH PROPAGATE 



But sights and sounds in Italy live in retrospect. Over 

 these enamelled meads and throug-h these woodland paths strayed 

 Virgil in his early years^ when pursuing his studies at Cremona 

 and Milan ; and at Mantua lay his farm^ where the '^ Eclogues " 

 were commenced to commemorate the munificence of Augustus 

 in restoring his patrimony after the contest at Philippic quietly 

 made over to some old veteran. There^ on yon once sheep-clad 

 hills, he may have sat pouring over Theocritus. Here the 

 flowers and bushes of his childish romps yet spiing, — tiger lilies 

 in the dusk thickets ; LuttereujDS and floating white chalices on 

 the water ; poppies and blue-bottles hanging in the coruj bound 

 with the most fugitive of convolvuli. Here wave the wall- 

 flowers or white violets on the ruins, and eveiywhere is profusion 

 of fragrant mints and dank potherbs, suitable to fill a panniera 

 and twine the garland for young and transient beauty. And 

 there, too, the old-world trellised vineyards yet remain, where 

 the arbustse, or propping trees, are annually rent with the shrill 

 and querulous piping of Haematodes, with as little doubt the 

 Cicada Viro^il deems so harsh. 



" Young Corydon, th' unhappy shepherd swain, 

 The fail- Alexis lov'd, hut lov'd in vain ; 

 And underneath the beechen shade, alone, 

 Thus to the woods and mountains made his moan 

 Is this, unkind Alexis, my reward ? 

 And must I die unpitied and unheard ? 

 Now the green lizard in the grove is laid. 

 The sheep enjoy the coolness of the shade. 

 And Thestylis wild thyme and garlic beats 

 For harvest hinds o'erspent with toil and heats; 

 While in the scorching sun 1 trace in vain 

 Thy flying footsteps o'er the burning plain. 

 The creaking locusts with my voice conspire ; 

 They fried with heat, and I with fierce desire I " 



The sheep howbeit are now all stall-fed, and no longer rove 

 the meads in Northern Italy ; and Dryden, no less inapposite 

 in translating, has made locusts out of VirgiFs Cicadse, and, pro- 

 ceeding with the same artificial diction, turns a love of romping 

 into fierce desire. So, again, in the following quotation from 

 the '' Georgics,^^ he, as a change, transforms the Cicadce into 

 Grasshoppers to suit the metre : — 



