of a single city. Nay, in days before the rule of the Cretan king, before our race in its impiety began to regale itself on slaughtered bullocks-this was the life that was led on earth by Saturn, monarch of the golden age-days when the blast of the trumpet and the hammering of the sword on the stubborn anvil were sounds unknown.

But we have traversed a tract of boundless length and breadth, and it is high time to unyoke the steaming necks of our horses.

BOOK III.

Or thee, too, mighty Pales, shall be my song, and of thee, the poet's worthy theme, the swain from Amphrysus' bank— of you also, ye woods and streams of Lyceus. Other subjects, which once could have laid on the idle mind the spell of poesy, are all of them hackneyed now. Who knows not Eurystheus, hardest of masters, or the altars of Busiris, whom never tongue praised? Who has not told the tale of the lost boy Hylas, of Latona and her Delos, of Hippodamia and Pelops, hero of the ivory shoulder and keen charioteer? I must essay a course by which I too may rise from the ground, and ride in triumph over the heads of mankind. Yes, I will be the first, if but lip hold out, to dislodge the Aonian muses from their mountain home, and carry them with me in my victorious progress into my native land. I will be the first to bring back to thee, my Mantua, the palms of Idumea, and on the broad green sward I will build a temple of marble by the water's side, where Mincius trails his great breadth along in lazy windings, and fringes his banks with soft rushes as he goes. In the shrine I will have Cæsar, the tutelar god of the temple. In his honour I, the hero of the day, in full pomp of Tyrian purple, will have driven by the river's bank a hundred fourhorse cars. My fame shall draw all Greece away from Alpheus and the grove of Molorchus, to contend in the footrace and with the gloves of raw hide, while I with stripped olive leaves wreathed round my brow will offer gifts at the altar. The

time is come-what joy, to lead the stately procession to the temple, and see the bullocks slaughtered, or to mark on the stage how the fronts turn round and the scene withdraws, and how the embroidered Britons lift that grand purple curtain from the ground! On the temple doors I will have sculptured, all of gold and solid ivory, the battle of the Ganges, and the conquering arms of our own Quirinus; ay, and there, in full tide of war, swelling high, shall be seen the Nile, and columns built high with sailors' brass. I will throw in, too, Asia's vanquished cities, and Niphates with his shattered crest, and the Parthian, who stakes his all on flight and treacherous volleys from behind, and those two trophies torn from foes at the two ends of earth-those two nations led in triumph from the two coasts of ocean. I will set up, too, Parian marble in breathing statues, the lineage of Assaracus, and the great names of the house that comes down from Jove, old father Tros, and the builder of Troy, the Cynthian god-while Envy shall be seen, hiding her miserable head from the Furies and the gloomy flood of Cocytus, and the snakes that coil round Ixion, the enormous wheel, and the never baffled stone. Meanwhile, pursue we the Dryads' woods and glades, virgin as they, the hard task that you have laid on me, my Mæcenas. Uninspired by you, no lofty work can my mind essay. Come along-no loitering or delay-here is Citharon calling us in full cry, and the hounds of Taygete, and Epidaurus with her well-trained horses-a cry rebounding in echoes from the applauding woods. But erelong I will gird myself to sing of those fiery fights of Cæsar, and waft his name in glory down a length of centuries, long as those which separate the cradle of Tithonus from Cæsar himself.

Whether a man in admiring ambition of the prize of the Olympic palm, brced horses, or breed bullocks, that shall be strong for ploughing, let his first care be to choose dams of

the mould required. That cow is best shaped that is grimlooking, with an ugly head, an abundance of neck, and dewlaps hanging down from jaw to leg; with no end to length of her side, and everything large about her down to her foot, her horns curved inwards and her ears under them hairy. Nor should I dislike to see her dappled with spots of white or rebelling against the yoke, and sometimes savage with her horns, her countenance approaching a bull's, tall altogether, and, as she moves, sweeping her footsteps with the tip of her tail. The age for service to the child-birth goddess and the just claims of wedlock is over before ten years, as it begins after four; in the rest of life there is no aptness for breeding, no strength for the plough. Meantime, while the luxuriance of your cattle's youth is still unspent give your males liberty; be the first to send in your herds, and supply race after race by successive propagation. Poor mortals that we are, our brightest days of life are ever the first to fly; on creeps disease and the gloom of age, and suffering sweeps us off, and the ruthless cruelty of death. Constantly there will be those whose weakly mould you would gladly exchange; as constantly recruit your stock; and that you may not deplore losses when too late, prevent them, and every year pick for your herd a young supply.

Your breed of horses, too, must be chosen with no less care. Mark me, and let those whom you mean to rear as the propagators of their line have even from their first youth the advantage of your special pains. See, from the day of his birth, a colt of a noble family, how high he steps in the pasture, and with what spring he brings down his legs. Fearlessly he leads the way, is the first to brave the threatening flood and trust his weight on the untried bridge-no terror for him have idle alarms. Look at the height of his neck, sharp cut of his head, the shortness of his belly, the plumpness

the

of his back, and the luxuriance of the firm flesh about that chest which swells so with life. For colour, your best are bay and blue-grey; the white and the dun are the worst. Now, if he happens to hear the sound of arms in the distance, no standing still for him; he pricks his ears, his whole body quivers, he snorts, and works in his nostrils the gathered fire. His mane is thick, and as he tosses it, rests on his right shoulder. The spine which runs between his loins is hollow; his hoof goes deep into the ground, and has the deep ring of solid horn. Such was the steed that learnt to obey the rein of Amyclean Pollux, Cyllarus, and those of which Greek song has preserved the memory, the horses of Mars, and the pair of the mighty Achilles; ay, such was the great god, Saturn, when quick as lightning he flung his mane over that horse's neck of his as he heard his wife's step, and as he ran, thrilled through the height and depth of Pelion with his clear sharp neigh.

Yet even him too, when the burden of disease or the increasing slowness of years makes him fail, you must shut up at home, nor suffer his old age to be a disgrace; for an old horse is a cold lover.1

Your first care then will be in each case to take note of the horse's spirit, and of his age; passing thence to observe the rest of his character, the breed of his sire and dam, and how keen the pang of defeat or the thrill of victory. Who has not watched the headlong speed of a racer, the chariots swallowing the ground before them as they pour along in a torrent from their floodgates, when the drivers' youthful hopes are at their height, and the bounding heart is drained by each eager pulsation? There are they, with their ever ready lash circling in the air, bending forward to let the reins go; on flies 1 The MS. is interrupted for three lines.-[ED.]