Such a passage as the following is surely the work of one who had watched and loved the alternations of the Italian summer:— “But when glad summer at the west winds’ call Shall send the flocks to woods and pastures free, Then ’neath the star of dawn on the cool fields Let browse thy sheep and goats, while morn is young, And the fresh dew lies hoary on the grass— The dew on tender blade, to cattle dear. When the fourth hour of day brings parching thirst, And in the trees cicadas’ notes are loud, Then bid the herd at wells and deep clear pools Drink the stream running from full oaken troughs. But in the deep noon heat a shady vale Seek, if perchance some oak of antique bulk There spread his giant boughs; or some grove dark With many a holm-oak’s gloom reposeth nigh In hallowed shadow. Then at set of sun Once more supply clear streams and drive afield Thy flock, when eventide cools all the air, And the moon dewy-moist repairs the lawns With freshness, while the shores with halcyon notes Resound, the copses with the goldfinch song.” It has generally been held that one of the most prominent notes of Virgil’s genius was his sympathy with Nature. To this the late Professor Conington, whose opinion on whatever concerned Virgil deserves all respect, used to demur, and to maintain rather that his chief characteristic lay in an elaborate and refined culture, manifesting itself in the most consummate delicacy and grace. But though Virgil was before all things the poet of learned culture and artistic beauty, this did not hinder, rather prompted him, to turn on Nature a sympathetic and loving eye. The perception of a sympathy between the feelings and vicissitudes of man and the world that surrounds him appears nowhere so strongly as in his latest poem, the Æneid. It may have been that as his subject led him much into battles and adventures, alien to his taste, he seized all the more eagerly every opportunity of reverting to that Nature which had been his earliest delight. Whatever be the cause, the pictures of Nature, whether in description or in simile, are more frequent, more intimate, more tender, than in either of his earlier productions. It has been noticed, for instance, that at the beginning of the sixth book, as the Sibyl draws nigh, the earth rumbles, the mountains quake, as if sharing the human dread at her approach; and that throughout the fourth book there is maintained a fine sympathy between the aspects of the outer world and the passions which agitate the human actors. It is thus he sets off the tumult in the soul of the lovelorn and wronged queen in contrast with the calm and silence of night:—