works on a technical question of the employment of elision[17]. The
_editio princeps_ of these eclogues is not dated, but probably appeared in
1471, so that they were at any rate accessible to writers of the
_cinquecento_. It is not easy to trace any direct influence, unless, as
perhaps we should, we credit to Calpurnius the suggestion of those poems
in which a 'wise' shepherd describes to his less-travelled hearers the
manners of the town.

A few pieces from the _Idyllia_ of Ausonius appear in some of the bucolic
collections, but they cannot strictly be regarded as coming within the
range of pastoral poetry.



IV


Events conspired to make Vergil the model for later writers of eclogues.
The fame of the poet was a potent cause among many. Another reason why
Theocritus found no direct imitators may be sought in the respective
methods of the two poets. Work of the nature of the _Idyls_ has to depend
for its value and interest upon the artistic qualities of the poetry
alone. Such work may spring up spontaneously under almost any conditions;
it is seldom produced through imitation. On the other hand, any scholar
with a gift for easy versification could achieve a certain distinction as
a follower of Vergil. His verse depended for its interest not on its
poetic qualities but upon the importance of the themes it treated.
Accidental conditions, too, told in favour of the Roman poet. During the
middle ages Latin was a universal language among the lettered classes,
while the knowledge of Greek, though at no time so completely lost as is