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The Moretum is a pleasing idyll, describing the daily life of the peasant Simplus, translated probably from the Greek of Parthenius. On it Teuffel says, "Suevius had written a Moretum, and it is not improbable that the desire to surpass Suevius influenced Virgil in attempting the same task again."

But if to read its authors, be the most valuable purpose of learning a language, the grammar will not be sufficient. Other books will be necessary. And how shall these be chosen, so as not to leave behind us the understanding of our pupil? Shall we introduce him first to the sublime flights of Virgil, the philosophical investigations of a Cicero, or the refined elegance and gay satire of Horace?

From Naples, Addison returned to Rome by sea, along the coast which his favourite Virgil had celebrated. The felucca passed the headland where the oar and trumpet were placed by the Trojan adventurers on the tomb of Misenus, and anchored at night under the shelter of the fabled promontory of Circe.

Angilbert was the Homer of the emperor's literary circle, and was the probable author of an epic, of which the fragment which has been preserved describes the life at the palace and the meeting between Charlemagne and Leo III. It is a mosaic from Virgil, Ovid, Lucan and Fortunatus, composed in the manner of Einhard's use of Suetonius, and exhibits a true poetic gift.

A third evokes all the dear, classical recollections of childhood the schoolroom, the dog-eared Virgil, the holiday, and the prize. A fourth brings before us the splendid phantoms of chivalrous romance the trophied lists, the embroidered housings, the quaint devices, the haunted forests, the enchanted gardens, the achievements of enamoured knights, and the smiles of rescued princesses.

We allude to the immortal Virgil, whose hero, the pious Æneas, may be considered as a perfect Fogie, developed with a rare precocity of power, so as to afford an illustration of the important truth, that, though Fogyism generally waits for old age, its maturity is not servilely dependent upon the progress of years, but in some fortunate natures pauci quos æquus amavit Jupiter may be brought to perfection at almost any period of life.

We are exercised also once a week in English composition, and once in Latin composition, and letters of persons renowned in history to each other. We get by heart Greek grammar or Virgil every evening. As for sermon-writing, I have hitherto got off with credit, and I hope I shall keep up my reputation.

There is no evidence in the Bucolics that Virgil ever had any practical knowledge of agriculture before he undertook to write the Georgics. His father was, it is true, a farmer, but apparently in a small way and unsuccessful, for he had to eke out a frugal livelihood by keeping bees and serving as the hireling deputy of a viator or constable.

Nay, he probably brought to him from the kitchen, on his own account, a piece of roast meat or a sausage. Many of the names which fell from the moist lips of the gentlemen outside Lucian and Virgil, Ovid and Seneca, Homer and Plato were perfectly familiar to him. The words the little doctor was reading must belong to their writings. How attentively the others listened!

"I'm sorry you've lost your Virgil," she said. I wondered, as already so many times I had wondered, at the somersaults of feeling she was capable of. Where was now the Margaret of the short, disdainful laugh? Not here, in the twilight between the bright room and the black yard.