prayer, in a large circular hall, round which, on pedestals, were set
copies of the portrait busts of great ancient writers. Among these was
"the Ionian father of the rest," our father Homer, with a winning and
venerable majesty. But the bust of Virgil was, I think, of white marble,
not a cast (so, at least, I remember it), and was of a singular youthful
purity and beauty, sharing my affections with a copy of the exquisite
Psyche of Naples. It showed us that Virgil who was called "The Maiden"
as Milton was named "The Lady of Christ's." I don't know the archeology
of it, perhaps it was a mere work of modern fancy, but the charm of this
image, beheld daily, overcame even the tedium of short scraps of the
"AEneid" daily parsed, not without stripes and anguish. So I retain a
sentiment for Virgil, though I well perceive the many drawbacks of his
poetry.

It is not always poetry at first hand; it is often imitative, like all
Latin poetry, of the Greek songs that sounded at the awakening of the
world. This is more tolerable when Theocritus is the model, as in the
"Eclogues," and less obvious in the "Georgics," when the poet is carried
away into naturalness by the passion for his native land, by the longing
for peace after cruel wars, by the joy of a country life. Virgil had
that love of rivers which, I think, a poet is rarely without; and it did
not need Greece to teach him to sing of the fields:

_Propter aquam, tardis ingens ubi flexibus_
_Mincius et tenera praetexit arundine ripas_.

"By the water-side, where mighty Mincius wanders, with links and loops,
and fringes all the banks with the tender reed." Not the Muses of
Greece, but his own _Casmenae_, song-maidens of Italy, have inspired him
here, and his music is blown through a reed of the Mincius. In many such