DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE ROMANS. 3] 



ata* The great physical picture of the universe by the Ro- 

 man poet contrasts in its cold doctrine of atoms, and in its 

 frequently visionary geognostie hypotheses, with his vivid and 

 animated delineation of the advance of mankind from the re- 

 cesses of the forest to the pursuit of agriculture, to the control 

 of natural forces, the more elevated cultivation of mind and 

 languages, and through the latter to social civilization.! 

 When, in the midst of the active and busy life of the states- 

 man, and in a mind excited by political passion, a keen sus- 

 ceptibility for the beauties of nature and an animated love of 

 rural solitude still subsists, its source must be derived from the 

 depths of a great and noble character. Cicero's writings test- 

 ify to the truth of this assertion. As is generally known, 

 many points in his book De Legibus, and in that De Oratore, 

 are copied from Plato's PhcedrKS ;$ yet his delineations of 

 Italia* nature do not, on that account, lose any of their indi- 

 viduality. Plato extols in general terms " the dark shade of 

 the thickly-leaved plane-tree ; the luxuriance of plants and 

 herbs in all the fragrance of their bloom ; and the sweet sum- 

 mer breezes which fan the chirping swarms of grasshoppers." 

 in Cicero's smaller sketches of nature we find, as has lately 

 been remarked by an intelligent inquirer, all things described 

 as they still exist in the actual landscape ; we see the Liris 

 shaded by lofty poplars ; and as we descend from the steep 



* " It may appear singular, but yet it is not the less correct, to at- 

 tempt to cumiect poetry, wliich rejoices every wherein variety of form, 

 color, and character, with the simplest and most abstract ideas. Poet- 

 ry, science, philosophy, and history are not necessarily and essentially 

 divided ; they are united wherever man is still in unison with the par- 

 ticular stage of his development, or whenever, from a truly poetic mood 

 of mind, he can in imagination bring himself back to it." Wilhelm von 

 Humboldt, Gesarnmelte IVerke, bd. i., s. 98-102. (Compare, also, Bern- 

 hardy, Rom. Litleratnr, s. 215-218, and Fried. Schlegel, Summtliche 

 Werke, bcl. i-, s. 108-110.) Cicero (ad Quint, fratrem, ii., 11) ascribes, 

 if not pettishly, at any rate very severely, more tact than creativ'e talent 

 (ingenium') to Lucretius, who has been so highly praised by Virgil, 

 Ovid, and Quintilian. t Lucret., lib. v., v. 930-1455. 



i Plato, Pkatdr., p. 230; Cicero, de Leg., i., 5, 15; ii., 2, 1-3; ii., 3, 

 6. (Compare Wagner, Comment. Perp., in Cic., de Leg., 1814, p. 6;) 

 Cic., de Oratore, i., 7, 28 (p. 15, Ellendt). 



$ See s. 431-434 of the admirable work by Rudolph Abeken, rector 

 of the Gymnasium at Osnabrtick, which appeared in 1835 under the 

 title of Cicero in seinen Briefen. The important addition relative to 

 the birth-place of Cicero is by H. Abeken, the learned nephew of the 

 author, who was formerly chaplain to the Prussian embassy at Rome, 

 and is now taking part in the important Egyptian expedition of Profes- 

 sor Lepsius. See, also, on the birth-place of Cicero, Valery, Voy. Hist, 

 en Italic, t. iii., p. 421. 



