THE ECLOGUES.—Virgil was the first Roman writer to cultivate pastoral poetry, and his Eclogues (_selections_), or more properly Bucolics (_shepherd poems_), are mostly dialogues, in imitation of the idyls of Theocritus. Various subjects are charmingly discussed by imaginary shepherds, in whom one sometimes recognizes the poet and his friends. The least understood of Virgil’s Eclogues is the one entitled “Pollio,” from the name of the consul to whom it is addressed. It was written B.C. 40, and predicts the coming of a wondrous Child, whose birth would usher in a golden age of peace and happiness. Some have seen in this child an unconscious allusion to the Babe of Bethlehem, whose advent the Sibylline oracles are believed to have foretold. Perhaps Virgil had heard of the Hebrew prophecies indirectly through the Alexandrian Greeks, and recast them in Latin verse; perhaps it was but a Roman infant—Pollio’s child—whose birth he sung in an exaggerated strain. However this may be, we may remember that the heathen as well as the Jewish world at this time expected a great reformer, who should restore the innocence and bliss of by-gone ages. EXTRACT FROM THE POLLIO. “Comes the Last Age, of which the Sibyl sung— A new-born cycle of the rolling years; Justice returns to earth, the rule returns Of good King Saturn; lo! from the high heavens Comes a new seed of men. Lucina chaste, Speed the fair infant’s birth, with whom shall end Our age of iron, and the golden prime Of earth return; thine own Apollo’s reign In him begins anew. This glorious age Inaugurates, O Pollio, with thee; Thy consulship shall date the happy months; Under thine auspices the Child shall purge Our guilt-stains out, and free the land from dread. He with the gods and heroes like the gods Shall hold familiar converse, and shall rule With his great father’s spirit the peaceful world. For thee, O Child! the earth untilled shall pour Her early gifts, the winding ivy’s wreath, Smiling acanthus, and all flowers that blow. The ground beneath shall cradle thee in blooms, The venomed snake shall die, the poisonous herb Perish from out thy path. So, when the years shall seal thy manhood’s strength, The busy merchant shall forsake the seas— Barter there shall not need; the soil shall bear For all men’s use all products of all climes. The glebe shall need no harrow, nor the vine The searching knife, the oxen bear no yoke; The wool no longer shall be schooled to lie, Dyed in false hues; but, coloring as he feeds, The ram himself in the rich pasture-lands Shall wear a fleece now purple and now gold, And the lambs grow in scarlet. So the Fates, Who know not change, have bid their spindles run, And weave for this blest age the web of doom.” W. L. COLLINS.