f women coaling ships in the East, carrying their unhappy
youngsters up and down the coal ladders throughout the work.]

[Footnote 153: The author of _Maison Rustique_ did not agree with Varro
in this opinion. I quote from Surflet's translation of 1606 (I, 7):

"And for writing and reading it skilleth not whether he be able to
doe it or no, or that he should have any other charge to looke unto
besides that of yours, or else that he should use another to set downe
in writing such expences as he hath laid out: for paper will admit any
thing."]

[Footnote 154: This temple and fig tree stood in Rome at the foot of the
Palatine hill, in the neighbourhood of the Lupercal. It was under this
fig tree that Romulus and Remus were supposed to have been suckled by
the wolf.]

[Footnote 155: 'That is the beste grease that is to a shepe, to grease
hym in the mouthe with good meate,' says Sir Anthony Fitzherbert.]

[Footnote 156: Pliny (VII, 59) says that most nations learn the use of
barbers next after that of letters, but that the Romans were late in
this respect. Varro himself wore a beard, as appears on the coin he
struck during the war with the Pirates. It is reproduced in Smiths
_Dict. Gr. and Rom. Biog_., III, p. 1227.]

[Footnote 157: Cowper's verse in _The Task_ seems to be all that is
happy in the way of translation of Varro's text, "divina natura dedit
agros, ars humana aedificavit urbes": but Cowley's "God the first
garden made, and the first city Cain" was probably Cowper's source.
Cowley was a reader of Varro, as his pleasant and sane essay _Of
Agriculture_ shows.]

[Footnote 158: Following the precedent of the first and second books in
the matter of local colour, the scene of this third book, relating to
villas and the "small deer," which were there reared, is laid in
the _villa publica_ at Rome, and the characters of the dialogue are
selected for the suggestion which their names may make of the denizens
of the aviary, the barn yard and the bee-stand.]

[Footnote 159: This Appius Claudius Pulcher served in Asia under his
brother-in-law Lucullus, was Augur in B.C. 59, Consul in 54 and Censor
in 50. He wrote a book on augural law and the habits of birds at which
Cicero poked some rather mean fun. He fixes the date of the dialogue.]

[Footnote 160: In Varro's time, as today, the river Velinus drained the
fresh pastures of the Umbrian prairie of Rosea, "the nurse of Italy,"
which lay below the town of Reate (the m