Homer painted with graphic fidelity and incomparable force, often with extraordinary beauty, the appearances of nature; but it was as illustrations, or for the purpose of similitude only, that he did so. It was on human events that his thoughts were fixed: it was the human heart, in all its various forms and changes, that he sought to depict. But Virgil was the high-priest of nature, and he worshipped her with all a poet's fervour. He identifies himself with rural life, he describes with devout enthusiasm its joys, its occupations, its hardships: the rocks, the woods, the streams, awaken his ardent admiration; the animals and insects are the objects of his tender solicitude. When the Mantuan bard wrote, ----"Saepe exiguus mus Sub terram posuit domos atque horrea fecit," he was inspired with the same spirit that afterwards animated Burns when he contemplated the daisy, Cowper when he sympathized with the hare. The descriptive poetry of modern times has owed much to his exquisite eye and sensitive heart. Thomson, in his _Seasons_, has expanded the theme in a kindred spirit, and with prodigal magnificence. Scott and Byron have brought that branch of the poetic art to the highest perfection, by blending it with the moral affections, with the picturesque imagery of the olden time, with the magic of eastern or classical association. But none of our poets--how great soever their genius, how varied their materials--have exceeded, if they have equalled, the exquisite beauty of his descriptions; and the purest taste in observation, as the utmost beauty of expression, is still to be best attained by studying night and day the poems of Virgil. Modern epic poetry arose in a different age, and was moulded by different circumstances. The mythology of antiquity was at an end, and with it had perished the gay and varied worship which had so long amused or excited an imaginative people. The empire of the Caesars, with its grandeur and its recollections, had sunk into the dusk; the venerable letters, S. P. Q. R., no longer commanded the veneration of mankind. A new faith, enjoining moral duties, had descended upon the earth: a holier spirit had come to pervade the breasts of the faithful. An unknown race of fierce barbarians had broken into the decaying provinces of the Roman empire, and swept away their government, their laws, their property, and their institutions. But the Christian faith had proved more powerful than the arms of the legions; it alone had survived, amidst the general wreck of the civilized world. Mingling with the ardent feelings and fierce energy of the barbarian victors, it sat ----"a blooming bride By valour's arm'd and awful side."