Virgil in Campania and Sicily. 2,53 



Either we must have recourse to the impossible 

 hypothesis that the poet was writing of what he 

 did not understand, or we must recall the fact, 

 which is told us in his life by Suetonius, that 

 he spent a great part of his time in Campania 

 and Sicily, where in an autumn walk by the sea 

 he might have seen what he here refers to. The 

 multitude of migrants from France, Holland, and 

 England take a south-easterly course in their 

 autumn migration, and alight on any resting-place 

 they can find, ships, islands, or wider sea-coasts 

 like those of South Italy and Sicily. Here Virgil, 

 we may be fairly sure, had seen them, and the 

 longing of their hearts had entered into his, and 

 borne fruit in a noble simile that is his, and not 

 another's. Their journey, when he saw them, 

 was not ended ; like the pale and longing ghosts, 

 they had yet another sea to cross, before they 

 could find a winter's home in the secure sunshine 

 of the south. 



