these he alludes in various passages to Nicias, afterwards a
physician at Miletus, to Philinus, noted in later life as the head of
a medical sect, and to Aratus. Theocritus has sung of Aratus's love-
affairs, and St. Paul has quoted him as a witness to man's
instinctive consent in the doctrine of the universal fatherhood of
God. These strangely various notices have done more for the memory
of Aratus than his own didactic poem on the meteorological theories
of his age. He lives, with Philinus and the rest of the Coan
students, because Theocritus introduced them into the picture of a
happy summer's day. In the seventh idyl, that one day of Demeter's
harvest-feast is immortal, and the sun never goes down on its
delight. We see Theocritus


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when he 'had not yet reached the mid-point of the way, nor had the
tomb yet risen on his sight.' He reveals himself as he was at the
height of morning, at the best moment of the journey, in midsummer of
a genius still unchecked by doubt, or disappointment, or neglect.
Life seems to accost him with the glance of the goatherd Lycidas,
'and still he smiled as he spoke, with laughing eyes, and laughter
dwelling on his lips.' In Cos, Theocritus found friendship, and met
Myrto, 'the girl he loved as dearly as goats love the spring.' Here
he could express, without any afterthought, an enthusiastic adoration
for the disinterested joys, the enchanted moments of human existence.
Before he entered the thronged streets of Alexandria, and tuned his
shepherd's pipe to catch the ear of princes, and to sing the
epithalamium of a royal and incestuous love, he rested with his
friends in the happy island. Deep in a cave, among the ruins of