June — Inta-ests of Sylvan Life. 181 



say so well, that the wonder is they were not tempted 

 to say more, or, if not more on the same subjects, that 

 they did not treat other subjects in the same manner. 

 Their inspiration does not seem to have been frequent 

 in its recurrence, or of long duration when it came. We 

 know that they corrected laboriously, and their correc- 

 tions, like those of a sculptor on the marble, would result 

 (with their taste) in a diminution of the mass. This 

 being so, it is a subject of special regret that so much 

 of the Gcorgics should have been occupied with mere 

 receipts and advice for the use of farmers. 



The interests of the sylvan life are very much the 

 same in all ages, the differences which time has brought 

 about being more in the arms and instruments we use 

 than in the objects of our study or the manner of our 

 enjoyment. The ancients had not our guns and micro- 

 scopes, but they hunted and botanized after their own 

 more primitive fashion, chasing the same animals, and 

 gathering the same plants. In the fifth Eclogue there 

 is a prospective sense of the duration of sylvan things 

 which expresses itself very strongly in two verses : — 



'Dum juga montis aper, fluvios dum piscis amabit, 

 Dumque thymo pascentur apes, dum rore cicadae ; 

 Semper honos, nomenque tuum, laudesque manebunt.' 



1 So long as the wild boar shall love the ridges of the hills, 

 or the fish the streams; so long as the bees shall feed on 

 thyme, or the cicada drink the dew; thy name and honor 

 shall remain.' 



Well, here, within so short a distance of the Val Ste. 

 Veronique, there are wild boars on the ridges of the 



