And again:
[273] Prima Ceres ferro mortales vertere terram Instituit, &c.
'Twas Ceres first taught Mortals with the Share To cut the Ground.
Sometimes he makes Reflections on the Condition of Human Life:
[274] Optima quæque dies miseris mortalibus ævi Prima fugit, subeunt morbi, tristisque senectus, &c.
The best of Life, which wretched Mortals share, First flies away: Diseases, sick Old Age, And Pain, and Death's Inclemency, succeed.
At another Time he heightens his Subject with Astronomy, and Natural Philosophy; an Instance of which I have already cited, from the Georgics: But I cannot help adding one more, not only as it makes very remarkably for our present Purpose, but is, moreover, an abundant Proof of what I before advanc'd, that Natural Philosophy might be express'd in the sweetest Numbers, and consequently is capable of much smoother Versification than that of Lucretius. The Poet, then, having mention'd the Noise of Crows as a Sign of fair Weather, proceeds thus:
[275] Haud equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis Ingenium, & rerum fato prudentia major: Verum ubi tempestas, & cœli mobilis humor Mutavere vias, & Jupiter humidus Austris Densat erant quæ rara modo, & quæ densa, relaxat; Vertuntur species animorum; & pectora motus Nunc alios; alios, dum nubila ventus agebat, Concipiunt: Hinc ille avium concentus in agris, Et lætæ pecudes, & ovantes gutture corvi.
Not that I think an Ingeny divine To them is giv'n, or Prescience of Events In Fate superior: But when changeful Winds Alter the various Temper of the Sky; And the moist Ether what before was dense Relaxes, and condenses what was rare: The shifting Phantasms of their Minds are turn'd; And now within their Breasts new Passions move, Diff'rent from those they felt, when driving Blasts Dispers'd the Clouds: Hence that Concent of Birds Chirping in Chorus; hence the Joy of Beasts, And Flocks of Crows exulting in the Fields.
Often he digresses into Fable and Fiction, as in that beautiful Episode of Orpheus and Eurydice: And still more often into poetical Descriptions, as those of the perpetual Spring in Italy, and the bleak Winter in Scythia; of the Happiness of a Country Life; of the various Prognostications of the Weather; of the Prodigies that foretold the Death of Cæsar; and, to name no more, of the Murrain among the Cattle. Of which, I wonder the foremention'd Author of the Essay on Virgil's Georgics should say, that Virgil seems in it to have summon'd up all his Might to equal the Description of the Plague in Lucretius, since the one is as much beyond the other in the Ingenuity of the Composition, as it is inferior to it, in the Dignity of the Subject; and the Plague in Lucretius is exceeded by that of Virgil, as much as Beasts are by Men. Upon the whole, this is deservedly esteem'd the most finish'd Piece of all Virgil's Works; I need not add, that it is the compleatest in its Kind, of any we now have, or the World ever saw.