I was afraid, my dear sir, that having got your Eaglet on your back--or your Eaglet having got old Aquila on his--you would sail away with him--or he with you--"to prey in distant isles." NORTH. You promised solemnly, sir, not to mention Eagles this evening. BULLER. I did not, sir. But don't let us quarrel. SEWARD. What does Virgil mean, sir, by "Rerum," in the line which Mr Alison thinks should have concluded the strain-- "Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma." NORTH. "Rerum"--what does he mean by "Rerum?" Let me perpend. Why, Seward, the legitimate meaning of Res here is a State--a Commonwealth. "The fairest of Powers--then--of Polities--of States." SEWARD. Is that all the word means here? NORTH. Why, methinks we must explain. Observe, then, Seward, that Rome is the Town, as England the Island. Thus "England has become the fairest among the Kingdoms of the Earth." This is equivalent, good English; and the only satisfactory and literal translation of the Latin verse. But here, the Physical and the Political are identified,--that is, England. England is the name at once of the Island--of so much earth limited out on the surface of the terraqueous globe--and of what besides? Of the Inhabitants? Yes; but of the Inhabitants (as the King never dies) perpetuated from generation to generation. Moreover, of this immortal inhabitation, further made one by blood and speech, laws, manners, and everything that makes a people. In short, England, properly the name of the land, is intended to be, at the same time, the name of the Nation. "England, with all thy faults, I love Thee still." There Cowper speaks to both at once--the faults are of the men only--moral--for he does not mean fogs, and March east winds, and fever and agues. I love thee--is to the green fields and the white cliffs, as well as to all that still survives of the English heart and thought and character. And this absorption, sir, and compenetration of the two ideas--land into people, people into land--the exposition of which might, in good hands, be made beautiful--is a fruitful germ of Patriotism--an infinite blending of the spiritual and the corporeal. To Virgil, Rome the City was also Rome the Romans; and, therefore, sir, those Houses and Palaces, and that Wall, were to him, as those green fields, and hills, and streams, and towns, and those cliffs are to Us. The girdled-in compendium of the Heaven's Favour and the Earth's Glory and Power. "Scilicet et RERUM facta est pulcherrima ROMA, Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces." Do you all comprehend and adopt my explanation, gentlemen? TALBOYS. I do. BULLER. I----do. SEWARD.