1 88 June — Personal Experience of Theocritus. 



we find in Virgil appears to be of a different nature. 

 It is not so fresh and lively, but is more indolent and 

 tender ; still, it seems genuine also. The difference 

 between the two is very like a difference that may 

 frequently be observed between two landscape-painters 

 in our own day, one of whom is remarkable for sketching 

 vigorously in color, and the other for concentrated 

 finish and artistic arrangement of his material in the 

 studio. The two artists may have an equal love for 

 Nature, although the work of the first will seem to have 

 more vitality, and that of the second more accomplished 

 art. Theocritus writes like a man who is accustomed 

 to walk in all sorts of wild places, and who remembers 

 his experiences in such walks. Thus, in the fourth 

 Idyl, Corydon says, * When you come to the mountain, 

 Battus, don't come unshod ; for on the mountain-land 

 grow pdfjbvot and acnrdXaOot,,' prickly shrubs of Sicily. 

 Evidently this is the recommendation of a practical 

 pedestrian. Then he has the art of finding pleasant 

 spots to rest in ; so Lacon says to his companion, 

 ' Don't be in such a hurry, the fire is not at your 

 heels. You will sing more agreeably when you are 

 seated here under the wild olive-tree and those shrubs. 

 Cool water trickles here ; we have grass and a leafy 

 couch, and the grasshoppers chirp close by.' Writing 

 like this takes us out of doors at once, and to the very 

 spot. In the seventh Idyl we have a rich description 

 of a pleasant country-house, and the arrival there : 

 'Then Lycidas turned to the left' — observe the vivid 

 reality given by this detail — ' and took the road to 



