4. Again, we find that the poem is pervaded by the poetical feeling of Nature. And Virgil, more than any other poet, presents that aspect of Nature in which the outward world appeared to the educated Italian mind. The personality and individual life attributed to natural objects, such as trees, rivers, winds, etc., belongs to a stage of conception between the Greek anthropomorphism and the recognition by the imagination of universal law and interdependence of phenomena. Modern poets consciously personify natural objects with more boldness and varied sympathy than Virgil. His conception of the life and personal attributes of natural objects appears to be less a conscious creative effort of the imagination, than an unconscious impression from outward things; an impression produced in a state of passive contemplation, rather than of active adventure; and an impression produced by qualities of a serene and tender beauty, rather than by those of a bolder or sublimer aspect. In all these respects Virgil represents a stage in the culture of the imagination between that of the early Greek poets and artists, and that of the most imaginative poets and painters of modern times. The familiar beauty of the outward world, as it was felt by a Roman or Italian, was expressed in the Latin word 'amoenum.' Thus Horace describes his retreat among the Sabine hills, as not only dear to him personally, but as beautiful in itself:--
Hae latebrae dulces, etiam, si credis, amoenae(411).
And it is to the attributes summed up in that word that Virgil imparts the ideal life of the imagination.
But not only is the feeling of Nature in the Georgics characteristic of the highest culture of the Italian mind, but the spectacle of Nature,--
brought before us,--is that which still delights the eye and moves the imagination in the various districts of Italy. The description of Spring at Georg. ii. 323-345,
Ver adeo frondi nemorum, ... ... exciperet caeli indulgentia terras,
is one of which (though we can always feel its beauty) we cannot often verify the accuracy in our more northern latitudes. It is to an Italian spring, more than to any season in any other European country, that the words of the third Eclogue 'nunc formosissimus annus,' are applicable. The varied pastoral beauty of the long summer day described at Georg. iii. 323-338,--from the early dawn when the fields are fresh beneath the morning-star; through the gathering warmth of the later hours, when the groves are loud with the chirping of the grasshoppers and the herds collect around the deep water-pools; through the burning heat of midday, from which the shade of some huge oak or some grove of dark ilexes affords a shelter; till the coolness of evening tempers the air, and the moon renews with dew the dry forest-glades,--is a beauty quite distinct from the charm of freedom and solitude,--yet not too remote from human neighbourhood,--of the changing aspects of the sky, and of the picturesque environment of hill, river, and moorland, which abides in the pastoral regions of our own and other northern lands. The 'sweet interchange of hill and valley(412),' mountain range and rich cultivated land, which northern and central Italy exhibits, must have made such scenes as that described at ii. 186-188,