128 THE EARLY DAYS OF 



those who have never even heard of this beautiful poem, I may 

 briefly mention that when Augustus Caesar passed his small-holdings 

 Act, giving allotments to his veteran soldiers, nearly two thousand 

 years ago, he, or perhaps Maecenas, directed Virgil, the Poet 

 Laureate, to describe the pleasures of a country life and demon- 

 strate that true happiness is be derived from the cultivation of corn 

 and vineyards, and in the production of honey. 



We may imagine with what delight the veterans, grouped beneath 

 the trees in the Roman suburbs, listened to the poem read aloud ; 

 and how they longed for the time when each should sit beneath 

 his own vine and fig tree, where the song of the blackbird, the lark, 

 and the cuckoo should awake them, instead of the unwelcome 

 reveille ; where the din of battle would be changed to the murmur- 

 ing cascade, and where the only evidence that such an evil as war 

 exists, would be the rusty weapons and empty helmets turned up 

 by the ploughshare. We may also imagine, on arriving at the 

 beautiful peroration of the first " Georgic," how many of the 

 veterans bore testimony, with the gesture and circumlocution 

 peculiar to age, and amid the laughter of the sceptics, how they 

 themselves, whilst returning from some revel well lined with Chian 

 wine, had been scared by ghosts, and distinctly heard " the old cow 

 of Mopsus," or " the sheep of Meliboeus," lamenting the assassi- 

 nation of Julius Caesar, 



" . . . et simulacra modis pallentia miris 

 Visa sub obscurum noctis, pecudesque loctttce.'' * 



When the fourth " Georgic " appeared, we may imagine what 

 eager enquiries were made for stocks or swarms of bees for sale ; 

 whilst the blacksmith, who had been doing a roaring trade in 

 converting swords into sickles, and spears into ploughshares, gave a 

 hearty encore to the lines beginning 



"Ac veluti lentis Cyclopes fulmina massis," 



* " Pale spectres in the close of night were seen, 



Dumb sheep and oxen spoke." — Drydetits Translation. 



