e impregnated with the soul, the inner atmosphere, of the
Italian land; full of touches such as that lovely

_Muscosi fontes et somno mollior herba,_

of violets and popies and narcissus; quinces and chestnut trees.
All that is of loveliness in rural (and sacred) Italy is there;
the landscapes are there, still beautiful; and the dignity and
simplicity of the old agricultural life. It is a practial
treatise on farming; yet a living poem.

Horace too played up for his friend Maecenas and for Caesar.
Maecenas gave him that Sabine farm; and Horace made Latin songs
to Greek meters about it: made music that is a marvel to this
day, so that it remains a place of pilgrimage, and you can still
visit, I believe, that

_fons Bandusia splendidiot vitro_

that he loved so well and set such sweet music to. He give you
that country as Virgil gives you the valley vistas, not unfringed
with mystery, of Appenines and the north. Between them, Italy is
there, as it had never been interpreted before. If--in Virgil at
least--there is a direct practical purpose, there is no less
marvelous art and real vision of Nature.

And then Augustus set both of them to singing the grandeur of
Rome; to making a new patriotism with their poetry; to
inspiring Roman life with a sense of dignity,--a thing it needed
sorely: Virgil in the _Aeneid_ (where also, as we have seen, he
taught not a little Theosophy); Horace in the _Carmen Saeculare_
and some of the great Odes of the third and fourth books. The
lilt of his lines is capable of ringing, and does so again and
again, into something very like the thrill and resonance of the
Grand Manner. Listen for it especially in the third and fourth
lines of this:

_Quid debeas, o Roma, Neronibus
Testis Metaurum flumen et Hasdrubal
Devictus, et pulcher fugatis
Ille dies Latio tenebris._

I am not concerned here to speak of his limitations; nor of
Virgil's; who, in whatever respect the _Aeneid_ may fall short,
does not fail to cry out in it to the Romans. Remember the
dignity and the high mission of Rome!--By all these means
Augustus worked towards the raising of Roman ideals.

To that end he wrote, he studied, he made orations. He searched
the Latin and Greek literatures; and any passage he came on that
illumined life or tended towards upliftment, he would copy out
and send to be read in the senate; or he would read it there
himself to the senators; o