imagination the scene of the festivity; but whether we can claim these
celebrations for our own May-day, is a doubtful point; for Wernsdorf,
who has included the Pervigilium Veneris in his edition of _Poetæ Latini
Minores_, vol. iii., maintains that it is to be referred to the
Veneralia, or feast of Venus, on the 1st of April. The Kalendar of
Constantius marks the 3d day of April as Natalis Quirini. If, then, the
morrow spoken of in the poem is to be taken to mean this birthday of
Romulus, we must suppose the vigil of three nights to have begun on the
night of the last day of March. But perhaps our readers will agree with
us, that there are quite as good grounds for attributing this vigil to
the Floralia, which commenced on the 27th of April, and ended on the
first of May. For although the rites of the Floralia were in honour of
Flora, yet we may easily conceive the principle by which the worship of
Venus, the spirit of beauty, and love, and production, would come to be
intermingled with the homage paid to the flower-goddess. And then the
three nights would denote the nights of the Floralia already past, if we
suppose the hymn to have been sung on the night before the 1st of May.
This seems more natural, as coinciding with the known length of the
festival, than Wernsdorf's hypothesis, which makes the vigil commence
before the month of Venus had opened. As regards the time of year, too,
May is far more suited than April, even in Italy, for outwatching the
Bear on woodland lawns.

The question regarding the author of the Pervigilium Veneris is still a
_lis sub judice_. Aldus, Erasmus, and Meursius, attributed it to
Catullus; but subsequent editors have, with much more probability,
contended that its age is considerably later. We may notice a scholastic
and philosophical spirit about it, which is ill-suited to the Bard of
Verona. Lipsius claimed it for the Augustan age, in consequence of the
mention of Cæsar which is introduced. But we think we may safely assume,