goddess is grandly and consistently supported: the sentiments are characteristic of a mind, determined to go all lengths in the attainment of its object. The ancients roasted their meat on wooden spits, either of hazel or of service. So in lib. ii. of the Georgics: Ergo rite suum Baccho dicemus honorem The libum was a sort of holy cake. The victims were led to the altar with a slack rope: if they were reluctant it was considered as a bad omen. The spits were made of hazel on this occasion, because that tree was destructive to the vines, as we find at verse 299. So the goat was sacrificed to Bacchus, because that animal is highly injurious to vines. Neve tibi ad solem vergant vineta cadentem; The precepts here given relating to vineyards are curious. The objection to the hazel was the size and extent of the roots. It is worth while to compare the poet with the practical writer, who in a great measure followed his steps. With respect to aspect, Virgil only protests against an exposure to the setting sun: Columella is diffuse in his regulations: "Quæ cuncta, sicut ego reor, magis prosunt, cum suffragatur etiam status cœli: cujus quam regionem spectare debeant vineæ, vetus est dissensio, Saserna maxime probante solis ortum, mox deinde meridiem, tum occasum: Tremellio Scrofa præcipuam positionem meridianam censente: Virgilio de industria occasum repudiante: Democrito et Magone laudantibus cœli plagam septentrionalem, quia existiment ei subjectas feracissimas fieri vineas, quæ tamen bonitate vini superentur. Nobis in universum præcipere optimum visum est, ut in locis frigidis meridiano vineta subjiciantur; tepidis orienti advertantur: si tamen non infestabantur Austris Eurisque, velut oræ maritimæ in Boetica. Sin autem regiones prædictis ventis fuerint obnoxiæ, melius Aquiloni vel Favonio committentur. nam ferventibus provinciis, ut Egypto et Numidia, uni septentrioni rectius opponentur." Columella's doctrine respecting cuttings is as follows: "Optima habentur a lumbis; secunda ab humeris; tertia a summa vite lecta, quæ celerrime comprehendunt, et sunt feraciora, sed ea quoque celeriter senescunt." He also, like Virgil, forbids the use of a blunt knife: "Super cætera illud etiam censemus, ut duris tenuissimisque et acutissimis ferramentis totum istud opus exequamur. obtusa enim et hebes et mollis falx putatorem moratur, eoque minus operis efficit, et plus laboris affert vinitori. Nam si curvatur acies, quod accidit molli; sive tardius penetrat, quod evenit in retuso et crasso ferramento; majore nisu est opus. tum etiam plagæ asperæ atque inæquales vites lacerant. neque enim uno sed sæpius repetito ictu res transigitur. quo plerumque fit, ut quod præcidi debeat præfringatur, et sic vitis laniata scabrataque pu trescat humoribus, nec plagæ consanentur. Quare magnopere monendus putator est, ut prolixet aciem ferramenti, et quantum possit novaculæ similem reddat." Summa flagella, we may infer from an observation of Mr. Miller, means the upper part of the shoot, which ought to be cut off:-" You should always make choice of such shoots as are strong and wellripened of the last year's growth. These should be cut from the old vine, just below the place where they were produced, taking a knot of the two year's wood, which should be pruned smooth: then you should cut off the upper part of the shoot, so as to leave the cutting about sixteen inches long. Now in making the cuttings after this manner, there can be but one taken from each shoot; whereas most persons cut them into lengths of about a foot, and plant them all, which is very wrong for the upper parts of the shoots are never so well ripened as the lower part, which was produced early in the spring; so that, if they do take root, they never make so good plants; for the wood of those cuttings being spungy and soft, admits the moisture too freely, whereby the plants will be luxuriant in growth, but never so fruitful as such whose wood is closer and more compact.' The classical traveller in Italy will trace with interest the geographical and picturesque descriptions of Virgil, especially such as were the scenes of religious rites and oracular superstitions, selected for those purposes as being calculated to impress awe on those uninitiated in natural knowledge. Of this kind in particular were regions of subterranean fire or sulphureous exhalations: At rex, sollicitus monstris, oracula Fauni, En. lib. vii. The voyage of Æneas would be well worth making, with the poem in hand, to mark the truth with which the permanent works of nature are delineated, and to meditate on the faint traces remaining of what constituted human grandeur in ages long past : — Hinc altas cautes projectaque saxa Pachyni Æn. lib. iii. The Aloïdes are celebrated by Virgil, in connection with the Titans and the Giants: Hic et Aloïdas geminos, immania vidi En. lib. vi. The story of Metabus, king of Privernum in the country of the Volscians, is justly dealt with by the moral poet, in the Æneid, lib. xi. : — Pulsus ob invidiam regno viresque superbas, The consequences of indulging tyrannical dispositions to a man in whom natural affections 'were notwithstanding strong, are pathetically touched: Non illum tectis ullæ, non monibus, urbes The scene between Æneas and his father, in the shades below, is one of the most striking, and the most highly wrought achievements of the poet, combining high romantic interest with political instruction: Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento; En. lib. vi. From the first line of this passage, Alexander Severus fancied he derived an omen of that imperial dignity, to which many years afterwards he was raised. The infant civilisation of Rome is thus picturesquely described by our poet: |
