by Conington in his General Introduction to the Georgics, to overrate the stress which Virgil puts on the ceaseless industry, foresight, vigilance, and actual force1 which must be put forth by the husbandman, as the condition of success in the struggle in which he is engaged. The very style of the Georgics bears the impress of this predominant idea. It is this idea which seems to give Roman strength to the workmanship of the poem; as it is the sense of the rich and tender life of Nature which gives to it the softness of Italian sentiment, so marvellously blended with that Roman strength. The imperial tone of conquest and command and civilising influence makes itself heard in such lines as these :

Exercetque frequens tellurem atque imperat arvis.
Tum denique dura

Exerce imperia et ramos compesce fluentes.

In quascumque voces artes haud tarda sequentur.

The speculative idea of the Georgics is thus seen to arise out of the philosophical thought of Lucretius. But the lesson inculcated by Virgil is directly opposite to that state of quietism and pure contemplation in which Lucretius finds the ideal of human life. Virgil's teaching is that best adapted to the strenuous temperament of his countrymen and to the general condition of men in all times. It will be found that this idea of a hard struggle, ordained by Supreme Power, against adverse circumstances, in which man receives Divine guidance by prayer and by interpreting the will of Heaven, and through which he attains to a state of final rest, runs through the Aeneid as well as the Georgics. Virgil reaches a practical result opposed to that which Lucretius reaches, by subordinating the Lucretian conception of man's relation to Nature to the Platonic belief in the supremacy of a Spiritual Will and in the moral

1

Compare, among many other similar instances, such expressions as these :— Labor actus in orbem

Agricolis redit.

Omnia quae multo ante memor provisa repones.

Quae vigilanda viris.

Continuo in silvis magna vi flexa domatur, etc.

dispensation under which man is placed. It is this belief which appears to underlie Virgil's acceptance of the religious traditions of antiquity, which might have been expected to have received, for all educated minds, their death-blow at the hands of Lucretius.

The science of Lucretius, as distinct from his philosophy of Nature and human life, is also partly accepted by Virgil, and partly rejected in favour of the tenets of an opposite school. In such passages as i. 89-90,

i. 415-423,

iii. 242,

Seu pluris calor ille vias et caeca relaxat
Spiramenta, novas veniat qua sucus in herbas,

Haud equidem credo, etc.,

Omne adeo genus in terris hominumque ferarumque, etc., we recognise the Lucretian explanation of the constitution of the earth, of the material elements of the mind, of the physical influence of love. Other passages again, such as i. 247, etc.,

Illic ut perhibent aut intempesta silet nox,

and iv. 219-227,

His quidam signis, etc.,

are in harmony with the Stoical doctrines and in direct opposition to the Epicurean science. Some of these apparent inconsistencies of opinion may be explained on the supposition that Virgil changed his allegiance from one school to another during the composition of the Georgics. But probably the truer explanation is that he was

Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri,

and that he accepted certain results of science which impressed his imagination, without caring for their consistency with others which he equally accepts. There is a constant tendency in him to allow his belief in the miraculous to interfere with his belief in natural law; as for instance in the account he gives of the birth of bees (iv. 200), and again of their spontaneous generation from the blood of slain bullocks (iv. 285). He has not the firm faith in natural agency which Lucretius had. Phenomena are still

regarded by him as isolated, not interdependent. The ordinary course of Nature he supposes to be interrupted by marvels and portents. The signs of coming things are represented, not as Lucretius would have represented them, as natural antecedents or concomitants of the things portended, but as arbitrary indications appointed for the guidance of man.

III.

Dedication and Invocation of the Georgics contrasted with the Dedication and Invocation of the 'De Rerum Natura.

For the technical execution of his poem Virgil could gain little help from his Greek models. The mass of materials which he had to reduce to order was much larger and more miscellaneous than the special topics selected for their art by the Alexandrians. The subject treated in the Georgics would have afforded scope for several poems treated on the principle on which Aratus and Nicander treated their subjects; and not only was the mass of materials larger and more varied, but the whole purpose of the Georgics was more complex. Virgil's artistic aim was not only to combine into one work the topics which he treats successively in the four books of the Georgics, but to interweave with them the poetry of personal and national feeling, of speculative ideas, of ethical and religious teaching, of science, of the living world of Nature. In Lucretius, on the other hand, he found an example of the systematic treatment of a vaster range of topics,—a range so vast, indeed, that the principal topics of Virgil's art enter as subsidiary elements into one part of his representation. Lucretius too had shown how to combine with the systematic exposition of his abstract theme a strong personal interest and a strong ethical purpose. He had shown how, out of the treatment of this abstract theme, opportunities naturally arose for uttering the poetry and pathos of human life, and for delineating in all its beauty and majesty the outward face and revealing the inner secret of Nature. He thus supplied

the general plan which Virgil might follow, with modifications suited to his narrower range of subject and his more purely didactic office. We see how Virgil adopts this plan, modified to suit his own ideas, in the personal dedication; in the Invocation and short introduction to his various books; in his manner of arranging, connecting, and illustrating the successive stages of his exposition; and, lastly, in the use which he makes of episodes, chiefly at the end of the various books, with the view of enabling his readers to feel the intimate connexion of his subject with the most valued interests of life,—with religion and morality, with family affection, with peace, prosperity, and national greatness.

The first parallel to be noticed, in the comparison between the two poems, is in the personal address. Maecenas stands in the same relation to the Georgics as Memmius does to the 'De Rerum Natura.' But as Memmius in the body of the poem is often merged in the ideal philosophical student, so Virgil, after the lines of compliment at the opening of his various books, for the most part directs his instructions to some imaginary husbandman. In the tones. in which Memmius and Maecenas are respectively addressed we recognise an equal sincerity of feeling. But a difference in the relation in which the poets stand to those whom they address makes itself felt in the contrast between such lines as these,

and

Sed tua me virtus tamen et sperata voluptas
Suavis amicitiae,

O decus, O famae merito pars maxima nostrae.

In the one case we recognise the man, born into the equal relations of an aristocratic Republic, who knows of no social superior in the world, and is attracted to him whom he honours by his dedication solely by the charm of friendship. In the other case, though the affection may not be less sincere, there is the unmistakeable note of deference to a social superior.

The difference between the position which the two poets

occupied and of the times in which they lived is still more manifest in the selection of the person whom they each fix on as the object of their reverential homage. Though the poem of Lucretius is inscribed to Memmius, it is really dedicated to the glory of Epicurus. His image presides over the massive temple raised to the power of Nature. He is the great benefactor of the world, exalted by his service to mankind, not only above all living men, but above those whom the popular religion had in early times elevated to the rank of gods

deus ille fuit, deus, inclyte Memmi.

In every book of the poem his praises are repeated in language of enthusiastic devotion. In the poem of Virgil the living Caesar occupies the place of a tutelary deity

In medio mihi Caesar erit, templumque tenebit.

He is ranked above all living men, and above the great men of the past by whom Rome had been saved from her enemies he is addressed as the immediate object of care to the native gods of Italy, and as destined after death to rank among the ruling powers of Heaven. Something is said in his honour in every book of the poem. The lines near the end,

Caesar dum magnus ad altum
Fulminat Euphraten bello, victorque volentis
Per populos dat iura, viamque adfectat Olympo,

seem intended to leave the thought of his actual greatness as the abiding impression on the mind of the reader; as the concluding lines of the Invocation seem intended to make his presence felt as that of its inspiring deity. While we cannot doubt that the admiration expressed by Lucretius is the sincere and generous tribute of genius acknowledging a great debt and unconsciously exaggerating the nobleness of its benefactor, it is a question impossible to determine how far Virgil's language is the expression of sincere conviction, and how far it is dictated by the necessities of his position.

But it is in their invocations of a Superior Power to aid