We have a further evidence of the pains taken to improve the Spanish breed in the circumstance, that Italian shepherds passed into Spain, just as we have formerly seen, that they migrated into Italy from Arcadia. In the following lines of Calpurnius (Ecl. iv. 37-49.), Corydon, a young shepherd, tells his friend and patron, Melibœus, that he should have been transported into Bætica, had not the times improved, and his master’s favor enabled him to remain in Italy.
Through thee I rest secure beneath the shade,
Such plenty hath thy generous bounty made,
But for thy favor, Melibœus, sent
Where Bætis’ waves the western plains indent,
Plains at the earth’s extremest verge, expos’d
To the fierce Moors, which Geryon once inclos’d.
There had I now been doom’d to tend for hire
Iberian flocks, or else of want expire:
In vain I might have tun’d my seven-fold reed: