Roman poetry was more generally understood and more diligently studied in the most polished days of English literature, than the yet scarcely discovered stores of Greek learning. Want of originality was not considered a blemish in an age the taste of which, notwithstanding all its merits, was very artificial; whilst the exquisite polish and elegance which constitute the charm of Latin poetry, recommended it both for admiration and imitation. Hence English poets have been deeply indebted to the Romans for their most happy thoughts, and our native literature is largely imbued with a Virgilian and Horatian spirit. This circumstance adds an especial interest to a survey of Roman literature as the fountain from which welled forth so many of the streams that have fertilized our poetry. The Georgics have been frequently taken as a model for imitation, and our descriptive poets have drawn largely from this source. Warton[568] considered Philips’ “Cyder” the happiest imitation; “The Seasons” of our greatest descriptive poet, Thomson, is a thoroughly Virgilian poem. Many striking instances of Virgilian taste might be adduced, especially the thunder-storm in “Summer,” and the praises of Great Britain, in “Autumn.” From the letter already quoted as preserved by Macrobius, it is clear that the Æneid was commenced when Augustus was in Spain,[569] that it occupied the whole of Virgil’s subsequent life, and was not sufficiently corrected to satisfy his own fastidious taste when he died. Augustus intrusted its publication to Varius and Tucca, with strict instructions to abstain from interpolation. They are said to have transposed the second and third books, and to have omitted twenty-two lines[570] as being contradictory to another passage respecting Helen in the sixth book.[571] Hence in many early manuscripts these verses are wanting. The idea and plan of the Æneid are derived from the Homeric poems. As the wrath of Achilles is the mainspring of all the events in the Iliad, so on the anger of the offended Juno the unity of the Æneid depends, and with it all the incidents are connected. Many of the most splendid passages, picturesque images, and forcible epithets are imitations or even translations from the Iliad and Odyssey. The war with Turnus owes its grandeur and its interest to the Iliad—the wanderings of Æneas, their wild and romantic adventures to the Odyssey. Virgil’s battles, though not to be compared in point of vigour with those of Homer, shine with a reflected light. His Necyia is a copy of that in the Odyssey. His similes are most of them suggested by those favourite embellishments of Homer. The shield of Æneas[572] is an imitation of that of Achilles. The storm and the speech of Æneas[573] are almost translations from the Odyssey.[574]