BY THE ROMANS. 17 



suits of agriculture, the subjugation of natural forces, the 

 cultivation of the intellect and of language, and the forma- 

 tion of civil society ( 24 ). 



When, in the midst of the busy and agitated life of a 

 statesman, and in a mind excited by political passions, an 

 animated love of nature and of rural solitude still subsists, 

 its source must be sought in the depths of a great and 

 noble character. Cicero's writings shew the truth of 

 this assertion. Although it is generally recognised that in 

 the book De Legibus, and in that of the Orator, many things 

 are imitated from the Phsedrus of Plato ( 25 ), yet the picture 

 of Italian nature does not lose its individuality and truth. 

 Plato, in more general characters, praises the dark shade of 

 the lofty plane tree, the luxuriant abundance of fragrant 

 herbs and flowers, the sweet summer breezes, and the chorus 

 of grasshoppers." In Cicero's smaller pictures, we find, as 

 has been recently well remarked ( 26 ), all those features 

 which we still recognise in the actual landscape : we see the 

 Liris shaded by lofty poplars ; and in descending the steep 

 mountain side to the east, behind the old castle of Arpinum, 

 we look on the grove of oaks near the Fibrenus, as well as 

 on the island now called Isola di Carnello, which is formed 

 by the division of the stream, and into which Cicero retired, 

 as he says, to " give himself up to his meditations, to read, 

 or to write." Arpinum, on the Yolscian Mountains, was 

 the birthplace of the great statesman ; and his mind and 

 character were doubtless influenced in his boyhood by the 

 grand scenery of the vicinity. In the mind of man, the 

 reflex action of the external aspect of surrounding nature is 

 early and unconsciously blended with that which belongs to 



