60 On the supposed Change 



ing to the rank of each individual, [a fact in which ^ve 

 see the germ of tlie feudal system] and that the fields 

 lay fallow every other year, the author says, " nee enim 

 cum ubertate et amplitiidine soli labore contendunt, iit 

 pomaria conserant, et prata separent, et hortos rigent 

 sola terree seges imperatur." — So that after charging the 

 defect of fruit trees in Germany to the severity of the 

 winters, this grave writer informs us that it is to be as- 

 cribed to the wa?2t of labor. The people were warlike, 

 impatient of labor, and not having known the pleasures 

 of luxury, they wanted only corn for subsistence. Here 

 we have the whole truth. 



But the passages in Ovid and Virgil, describing a 

 Thracian winter, which I have before mentioned, re- 

 quire some consideration.... Oi;zr/r/(? Tr-istibiis, lib. 3. El. 

 10. Virgil. Georg. lib. 3. v. 355. 



Ovid employs the whole of the 10th Elegy of his third 

 book in describing the phenomena of a Scythian winter, 

 as it appeared at Tomos, a town built by the Greeks, 

 near the south bank of the Danube, on the Euxine. 

 The passage is too long to be here transcribed ; but the 

 principal phenomena of the winter were, violent storms, 

 deep snow, and frost so severe as to freeze wine in jars, 

 and the Danube covered with solid ice, sufficient to sus- 

 tain horses and cattle with waggons, or whatever might 

 be the vehicles called plaustra. Virgil's description cor- 

 responds in general with Ovid's ; and he adds that snow 

 accumulated to the depth of seven [ulnos] cubits, 

 about ten or eleven feet — that cattle perished with cold — 

 and that deer, plunged in snow almost to the top of their 

 horns, were killed with knives, not being able to escape. 



On these descriptions, I Would offer the following ob- 

 servations : 



1. Some allowance must be made for the license of 

 the poet. Exaggeration is admitted into verse for the 

 purpose of exhibiting strong images to the mind ; and 

 when Virgil speaks of snow ten feet deep, it will be ob- 

 vious that he must have had in view snow-drifts which 

 often accumulate to that highth, in the middle latitudes 

 of the earth, taking, as a poet naturally would, the most 

 Tcmarkable phenomenon as the subject of representa- 



