TIEGIL S ITALIAN HOMES. IO9 



all manner of waterfowl from the two rivers Po and Mincio, 

 and from the Lacus Benacus (Lago di Garda) which is only 

 about twenty miles distant. It would be strange indeed, if, even 

 when following the tracks of a Greek poet, Virgil had not in his 

 mind some of the familiar sights on the banks of Mincius. 



But later in life he was at least as much in southern as in 

 northern Italy. That the first three Georgics were written, 

 or at least thought out, on the lovely bay of Naples, is certain 

 from the lines at the end of the fourth Georgia : — 



lUo Virgilium me tempore dulcis alebat 

 Parthenope, etudiis florentem ignobilis oti.'^ 



Here were all the sea-birds, and the wild-fowl that haunt the 

 sea ; here, as we shall see, the summer visitors might land 

 on their way from Africa. Here, from the sea and all its 

 varying life, the poet's mind would enrich itself with sights 

 unknown to him in the flat-lands of the Padus, and grow to 

 understand more fully day by day the impressions — often duU 

 ones — which Nature had made on the poets who had sung 

 before him. Rome he never loved, though he had a house 

 there : perhaps he had seen enough of the huge city during the 

 years given to the dreary rhetorical education of the day, after 

 first leaving his home. He loved Campania, and beloved SicUy'*; 



^ I Virgil then, of sweet Parthenope 

 The nursling, woo'd the flowery waJks of peace 

 Inglorious, &c. 



' ' Habuit domum Bomae Esquiliis juxta hortos MaecenatianoB, quamquam 

 secessu Campaniae Siciliaeque plurimum uteretur' (Life by Suetonius, 

 oh. 13.) 



