Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 175 



bird to deferve his notice, and win an endlefs life 

 in his melodious verfe, muft not only be of a 

 marked and fine fpecies, but alfo, in moft cafes, 

 one which has obtained fame from Homer and 

 other poets and writers dear to Virgil. If our own 

 Milton had one favourite bird, the nightingale, 

 whofe praifes he fings with an iteration as beauti- 

 ful as the fongfter's own {trains, Virgil's favourite 

 was unquestionably the eagle. But his eagle does 

 not fit tamely by the throne of Jupiter while the 

 queen of heaven carefTes its neck ; it is efTentially 

 a bird of daring and rapine and folitude. Like 

 Tennyfon's eagle 



" He clafps the crag with hooked hands, 

 Clofe to the fun in lonely lands, 

 Ring'd with the azure world he ftands ;" 



or like Shelley's eagle, "foaring and fcreaming 

 round her empty neft," me 



" Could fcalc 



Heaven, and could nourifli in the fun's domain 

 Her mighty youth with morning ;" 



or it refembles, in another mood, Mrs. Brown- 

 ing's 



" Eagle with both grappling feet ftill hot 

 From Zeus 's thunder." 



All the power and rum of Virgil's fineft verfe is 

 fpent in picturing the eagle to his hearers, as he 

 muft have often feen it fweeping down from the 

 fpurs of the Alps round Lago di Garda, and 

 carrying off its haplefs victim, fwan or marfh- 

 fnake, over the wide valley to the diftant crefts of 

 the Apennines. Perhaps the very vigour and 



