If there be one example of descriptive poetry relating to landscape which throws upon the mind a complete natural scene during the process of reading, it is the beautiful chant of the Chorus in _Oedipus Coloneus_. The perfection of form and majestic diction of this poetry are remarkable, but the successful presentation of the picture on the mind is largely due to the simple and direct language used, and the astonishing brevity with which the many features of the scene are described. Green dells, fields, plains, groves, rocks, flowers, fruit, and rushing waters, are all brought in, and the few lines used do not prevent the introduction of the Muses, the jovial Bacchus with the nursing nymphs, and radiant Aphrodite. All modern poetry descriptive of landscape entirely fails in presenting a comprehensive view. It is too discursive--over descriptive, to permit of the mind collecting the details together as one whole. Here is the best prose version of the lines of Sophocles[a]: Thou hast come, O stranger, to the seats of this land, renowned for the steed; to seats the fairest on earth, the chalky Colonus; where the vocal nightingale, chief abounding, trills her plaintive note in the green dells, tenanting the dark-hued ivy, and the leafy grove of the god, untrodden, teeming with fruits, impervious to the sun, and unshaken by the winds of every storm; where Bacchus the reveller ever roams attending his divine nurses. And ever day by day the narcissus, with its beauteous clusters, bursts into bloom by heaven's dew, the ancient coronet of the mighty goddesses, and the saffron with golden ray; nor do the sleepless founts of Cephisus that wander through the fields fail, but every day it rushes o'er the plains with its limpid wave, fertilizing the bosom of the earth; nor have the choirs of the Muses loathed this clime; nor Aphrodite too, of the golden reign. [a] Oxford translation. NOTE 32. PAGE 81 It is perhaps necessary to remind some readers that the term "invention" is used in two senses in art, referring to the original idea or scheme, or to the preparation of the design embodying the idea. In poetry and fiction the term has the former significance; in painting and sculpture the latter. The restriction in the use of the term in the last named arts is compulsory. (See Chap. III., and Note 33.) NOTE 33. PAGE 81