attained by man, if he only could be taught how to appreciate it1; nay, that has been attained by him in the happier times when the land was cultivated by free men, each holding his own plot of ground. This was the life of the old Italian yeomen, the life by which Etruria waxed strong and brave, the life to which Rome herself owed the beginning of her greatness. It is the life which the national imagination, in its peaceful mood, and yearning to return into the ways of innocence and piety, discerned in that distant Golden Age, when all men lived in contentment and abundance under the rule of the old god, from whom the land received the well-loved name 'Saturnia tellus".' 1 Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini, Hanc Remus et frater, sic fortis Etruria crevit Cp. Le mot triste et doux de Virgile: "O heureux l'homme des champs, s'il connaissait son bonheur" est un regret, mais, comme tous les regrets, c'est aussi une prédiction. Un jour viendra où le laboureur pourra être aussi un artiste, si non pour exprimer (ce qui importera assez peu alors) du moins pour sentir le beau.' G. Sand. 2 Virgil rightly connects this greatness with the site of Rome in the line, Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces. It was from the necessities imposed by that site that Rome at an early period became the largest urban community in Italy, and was forced, in consequence of the contiguous settlements of other races, to begin that incorporating and assimilating policy which ultimately enabled her to establish universal empire. Cp. 'Rome herself, like other cities of Italy, Gaul, and elsewhere, grew out of the primitive hill-fortresses; the distinction between Rome and other cities, the distinction which made Rome all that she became, was that Rome did not grow out of a single fortress of the kind, but out of several.' Historical and Architectural Sketches, by E. A. Freeman, D.C.L., etc.-Walls of Rome, p. 160. 6 3 Cf. Itaque in hoc Latio et Saturnia terra, ubi Dii cultus agrorum progeniem suam docuerunt.' Columella. CHAPTER VII. THE GEORGICS AS A POEM REPRESENTATIVE OF ITALY. THE consideration of the motives which influenced Virgil to undertake the composition of the Georgics, of the form of art adopted by him, of the national interest attaching to his subject, of the materials used by him and the sources from which he derived them, of the author who most influenced him in speculative idea and in the general manner of treating his subject, leads to the conclusion that, in its essential characteristics, the poem is a genuine work of Italian art and inspiration. If the original motive influencing him was the ambition to treat of rural life in the serious spirit of Hesiod, as he had done in the lighter vein of Theocritus, that motive was soon lost in the strong impulse to invest with charm and dignity that kind of life in which the Italian mind placed its ideal of worth and happiness. By thus identifying himself with a great national object Virgil raised himself to a higher level of art than that attained by poets whose interests are purely personal and literary. Next to satire, there was no form of poetry which had more of a Roman character than didactic poetry. By becoming a province of Roman art, this form acquired all its dignity and capacity of greatness. And though the Georgics, being a work of Italian culture as well as of Italian inspiration, could not escape some relation, not in form only but in materials and mode of expression, to Greek originals, there is no great work of Latin genius, except the Satires and Epistles of Horace, in which the debt thus incurred is so small. And not only is the debt small in quantity, but it is incurred to authors much inferior to Virgil in creative power and poetical feeling. In using borrowed materials he makes the mind of Greece tributary to his own national design. But his most valuable materials are derived either from personal observation, or from Latin authors who had put on record the results of their observation: and his largest debt, in imaginative feeling and conception, is incurred not to any Greek author, but to the most powerful and original of Roman poets and thinkers. The speculative idea, which gives something of philosophical consistency to the poem, was, if not one of pure Italian conception, yet made more truly real and vital through the experience of the force and endurance exercised by the strong men of Italy in subduing the earth to their will, and in constructing their great material works (operum laborem'), such as their roads, baths, aqueducts, harbours, encampments, and great draining works, by which they provided the comforts of life ('commoda vitae') and defended themselves against their enemies or the maligner influence of the elements. The language of Virgil himself and the testimony of ancient commentators confirm the impression, that the object of which he was most distinctly conscious in the composition of the poem was the 'glorification of Italy,'— of the land itself in its fertility and beauty, and of the life most congenial to Italian sentiment. Even to a greater extent than he may have intended, Virgil, through the national mould in which his thought was cast and the national colour of his sympathies, fulfils this representative office. Where the poem seems to a modern reader to fail in human interest, the interest which it had for the poet's countrymen is revived by dwelling in thought on this representative character. When the associations appealed to are of Greek rather than of Italian origin, we have to remember that the poem was addressed to a highly educated class of readers, at the time when the Roman mind had been most enlarged and enriched, but had not yet been satiated by Greek studies. Yet this kind of appeal is quite subsidiary to that made to the native sensibilities of the Romans. It is to commend to their love and admiration a purely Italian ideal that Virgil employs the resources of Greek learning, as well as all the strength and delicacy of his own genius. A rapid review of the tastes, sympathies, and affections on the part of his readers to which Virgil appeals, both in the body of his poem and in its finer episodes, will show that they all contribute to produce this representative character. Where some of the details of the poem seem to fail in poetic interest, they still have the interest of being characteristic of the Italian mind. 1. The poem professes to impart practical instruction on the best method of cultivating the land, of propagating trees, of breeding cattle, horses, etc., of profiting by the industry of bees : Quare agite, O, proprios generatim discite cultus, This is the obvious and ostensible purpose of the poem; 1 2 Cp. Gisborne's 'Essays on Ancient Agriculture,' and 'Forest Trees and Woodland Scenery,' by W. Menzies, Deputy Surveyor of Windsor Forest and Parks. The following extracts from the last-named work-a work which combines thorough practical knowledge with true poetical feeling-support the statement in the text: 'All the methods, both natural and artificial, of propagating trees are described in graphic language. Virgil also fully describes the self-sowing of trees, artificial sowing, propagating by transplanting of suckers, propagating by pegging down the branches till they strike root at the point of contact ancient nor modern critics regard him as free from liability to mistake, and the tendency of his mind to believe in marvellous deviations from natural law exposed him to errors into which less imaginative writers were not likely to fall; but the substantial accuracy of his observations and acquired knowledge seems to be attested both by positive and negative evidence.. It is not a question as to whether the operations described in Virgil satisfy the requirements of skilled or even of unskilled farming in the present day, or whether he does not fall into mistakes in natural history which a modern reader, with no scientific knowledge of the subject, may easily detect; but whether he has adequately represented the methods of ancient Italian agriculture, and whether he is a trustworthy exponent of the scientific beliefs of his age, and an accurate observer of those phenomena which were as accessible to an ancient as to a modern enquirer. On these points he satisfied the best critics among his countrymen. The general truth of his observation is further attested by the survival in Southern Europe, into comparatively recent times, of some of the processes described by him, which seem most remote from our ordinary experience1. It is attested also by the accuracy of his description of the unchanging phenomena of Nature, and of the habits of animals. A modern reader may think the value of his poetry little, if at all enhanced, by the rank which he may claim among the scriptores rei rusticae.' It may seem matter 6 with the earth, and propagating by simply cutting off a small branch from the top and placing it in the moist warm earth. All these are correct. Indeed, the art is little advanced since the time of Virgil.' p. 46. Mr. Menzies suggests an ingenious explanation of Virgil's mistake as to what trees could be grafted on one another. In speaking of the Aeneid he bears further testimony to the accuracy of Virgil's observation: 'The poet was equally great and observant of the details of woodcraft, and must have watched keenly the details of the foresters around him.' p. 50. This remark reminds us of the fact that one of his father's means of livelihood was 'silvis coemendis.' At p. 53 Mr. Menzies draws special attention to the description of the mistletoe in Book vi, and of the aged elm under which the Shades are described as resting. 1 Cp. Holdsworth's Remarks and Dissertations on the Georgics. |