fifth century B. C.,-the glory claimed for them in one of the speeches attributed to their great Statesman by their great Historian, that they combined this devotion to the common good with a high development of all personal excellence. But in Athens this union of national and individual energy and virtue was of very brief duration. On the other hand, the lasting greatness of the Roman Commonwealth was purchased by the sacrifice of the energies and accomplishments which add to the grace and enjoyment of individual existence. The greatness and permanence of the race, not the varied development of the individual, was the object aimed at and attained in the vigorous prime of the Roman Republic 1. If this aspect of national life is not directly brought before us by Virgil in the Georgics, it is brought into strong light in the representation of his mimic commonwealth-the Mores et studia et populos et proelia of the community of bees. It scarcely needs the reminder of Sufficiunt ipsae regem parvosque Quirites to convince us that, in this representation of an industrious and warlike community, earnest in labour from the love of the objects on which it was bestowed and from pride in its results Tantus amor florum et generandi gloria mellis,— resolute and unconquerable in battle, sacrificing life rather than abandoning the post of duty, inspired with more than Oriental devotion to their head, Virgil was teaching a lesson applicable to the Roman Commonwealth under its new government. While labour is shown to be a condition of individual happiness, or at least contentment, it is not in individual happiness, but in the permanent greatness of the community that its ultimate recompense is to be sought. Though the individual life may be short and meagre in its 1 Cp. Mommsen, book i. chap. 2. attractions, and generation after generation may spend itself in an unceasing round of toil, At genus immortale manet, multosque per annos Stat fortuna domus et avi numerantur avorum. The training and discipline for the attainment of these virtues are to be sought in plain and frugal living, in hardy pastime as well as hardy industry1, in obedience to parents and reverent worship of the gods Illic saltus et lustra ferarum, Et patiens operum exiguoque adsueta iuventus, and in abstinence from the luxurious indulgence, the anxious business, and the enervating pleasures of a corrupt civilisation 2. While the grace and beauty of the poem arise out of the feeling of the life of Nature, the dignity and sanctity with which the subject is invested are due to the sense of the intimate connexion between the cultivation of the land and the moral and religious life of the Italian race. 7. The poem may be called a representative work of genius in respect also of its artistic execution. It is the finest work of Italian art, made perfect by the long education of Greek studies. More than any work in Latin literature the Georgics approach to the symmetry of form, the harmony of proportion, the unity of design and tone, characteristic of the purest art of Greece. But it is not in any sense a copy formed after any Greek pattern. It was seen that out of the more rudimentary attempts of Greek literature in this particular form of poetry Virgil created a new and nobler type, which never has been, and probably never will be, improved on. The execution of the poem is characterised by the genial susceptibility and enthusiasm of the Italian temperament, by the firm 1 Compare with this the character of the Italian race given in the speech of Remulus, Aen. ix. 600, etc. : Venatu invigilant pueri, etc. 2 This abstinence is indirectly inculcated and illustrated in such passages as iii. 209, 524, iv. 197, etc. structure of all Roman work and the practical moderation and dignity of the Roman mind, and by a kind of meditative and pensive grace peculiar to the poet himself. The thought of the poem is not separable from the sentiment pervading it. And in this respect there is a marked difference between the genius of Virgil and of Lucretius. However much the speculative activity of Lucretius is charged with feeling, yet the thought stands out, clearly defined, through the atmosphere surrounding it. The melancholy of Lucretius, though it was the result partly of temperament, of the reaction perhaps from the passionate enthusiasm of his nature,-and partly of his relation to his age, was yet a state of mind for which he could assign definite grounds. That of Virgil was probably also in a great measure the result of temperament; but it seems to be a mood habitual to one who meditated much inwardly on the misery of the world, who was moved by compassion for all sights of sorrow or suffering1, and was yet unable to shape this sense of 'the burthen of the mystery' into articulate thought. The atmosphere of the poem has become one with its substance. This fusion of meditation and feeling derived from the individual genius of the poet imparts a distinctively original charm to the style of the Georgics. The style is thus, in a great degree, Virgil's own, and owes little to the borrowed beauties of Greek expression. Though the language of the Alexandrine poets is sometimes reproduced, yet the beauty of those transferred passages arises from the grace given to them, not from that borrowed from them. The same may be said of the use sometimes made of the quaint diction of Hesiod. one or two striking passages, such as that Ecce supercilio clivosi tramitis, etc., 1 It is among the blessings of the countryman's lot enumerated in the passage 'O fortunatos,' etc., that he is removed from the painful sight of the contrasts between poverty and riches which the life of a great city presents— neque ille Aut doluit miserans inopem aut invidit habenti. If Virgil has adopted the language of the Iliad1; and though it is impossible to improve on that, yet there is no slavish imitation of it: only a new picture is painted, recalling, by some vivid touches, a former piece by the great master. detraction is to be made from the originality of expression in the Georgics, the debt due by Virgil was incurred to his own countryman. In adopting modes of expression from Lucretius, Virgil brings down the bold creativeness of his original to a tone more suited to the habitual sobriety of the Italian imagination. He often fixes into the form of some general thought what appears in Lucretius as a living movement or individualised action. And this tendency to abstract rather than concrete representation is in accordance with the Roman mould of mind. We notice also how much more sparingly he uses such compound words as 'navigerum,' 'silvifragis,' etc., by which the earlier poets endeavoured to force the harder metal of the Latin language into the flexibility of Greek speech. Virgil felt that these innovations were unsuited to the genius of the Latin tongue, and endeavoured to enlarge its capacities by novel constructions and by using old words with a new application rather than by novel formations of words. But this gain was perhaps more than compensated by the loss which the language suffered in idiomatic purity and clearness. In rhythmical movement the poem exhibits the highest perfection of which Latin verse is capable. Of Homer's verse it has been happily said that it has 'a tranquil deep strength, reminding us of his own line, Ἐξ ἀκαλαῤῥείταο βαθύῤῥοου ὠκεάνοιο2. The movement of Virgil's verse reminds us rather of his own river- qui per saxa volutus Purior electro campum petit. 1 Il. xxi. 257-262. 2 Professor Lushington's Inaugural Lecture delivered to the Students of the Greek Classes in the University of Glasgow, November, 1838. Occasionally we catch the sound of some more rapid rush and impetuous fall, as in the hurry and agitation and culminating grandeur of these lines Continuo, ventis surgentibus, aut freta ponti Litora misceri et nemorum increbrescere murmur; but generally the stream flows on, neither in rapid torrent nor with abrupt transitions, but with a tranquil deep strength,' fed by pure and abounding sources of affection, of contemplation, of moral and religious feeling, of delight from eye and ear, from memory and old poetic association. |