Flumina, muscus ubi et viridissima gramine ripa,
Speluncaeque tegant, et saxea procubet umbra[350].
In the inculcation of his practical precepts his aim is even more to exalt the dignity and to exhibit the delight of rural labour, than to explain its methods or inculcate its utility.
He imparts a peculiar vivacity, grace, and tenderness to his treatment of many topics by the analogy which he suggests between the life of Nature and of man. The perception of analogy originates in the philosophical and imaginative thought of Lucretius; and it is in the second Book, in the composition of which, as Mr. Munro has shown, Virgil’s mind was saturated with the ideas, feelings, and language of his predecessor, that this element of poetical interest is most conspicuous. The following examples, occurring in the technical exposition of the growth and tending of trees, are all taken from the second Book; and two of them, those marked g and h, are immediately suggested by Lucretius:—
[351]a. Parva sub ingenti matris se subicit umbra.
b. tenero abscindens de corpore matrum.
c. Exuerint silvestrem animum.
d. Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma.
e. Mutatam ignorent subito ne semina matrem.
f. atque animos tollent sata.