How vivid too, and with the vividness of modern poetry, are his descriptions of the cave of Hades and its neighbourhood (ii. 729-750), and the Great Syrtis (iv. 1230-1245)! In his selections from the Greek Anthology Mr. Palgrave is much happier; but here again he has many omissions, and among them the most remarkable illustration of Greek nature-painting to be found in that collection--namely, Meleager’s idyll giving an elaborate description of a spring day, which might have been written by Thomson (_Pal. Anthology_, ix. 363). It may be observed in passing that ουρεσιφοιτα κρινα (_Pal. Anth._, v. 144) can hardly mean “lilies that wander over the hills,” but lilies “that haunt the hills,” and that ξουθαι μελισσαι in Theocritus, vii. 142, probably means “buzzing” bees, not “tawny.”
In dealing with the Roman poets Mr. Palgrave is, with one exception, most unsatisfactory. From the poets preceding Lucretius, amply as the fragments would serve his purpose, he gives only one illustration. We should have expected the vivid picture given by Accius in his _Œnomaus_ of the early morning:
“Forte ante Auroram, radiorum ardentum indicem, Cum e somno in segetem agrestis cornutos cient, Ut rorulentas terras ferro rufidas Proscindant, glebasque arvo ex molli exsuscitent.”
“Perchance before the dawn that heralds the burning rays, what time rustics bring forth the oxen from their sleep into the cornfields, to break up the red dew-spangled soil with the ploughshare, and turn up the clods from the soft soil”;
or the wonderfully graphic description of a sudden storm at sea, in the fragments of the _Dulorestes_ of Pacuvius:
“Profectione læti piscium lasciviam Intuentur, nec tuendi capere satietas potest. Interea prope jam occidente sole inhorrescit mare, Tenebræ conduplicantur, noctisque et nimbum occæcat nigror, Flamma inter nubes coruscat, cælum tonitru contremit, Grando mixta imbri largifico subita præcipitans cadit, Undique omnes venti erumpunt, sævi existunt turbines, Fervit æstu pelagus.”
“Glad at heart when they set out they gaze at the sporting fish, and are never weary of looking at them. Meanwhile, hard upon sunset, the sea ruffles, darkness gathers thick, the blackness of the storm-clouded night hides everything, flame flashes between the clouds, heaven shakes with thunder, hail, mingled with streaming rain, dashes suddenly down, from every quarter all the winds tear forth, wild whirlwinds rise, the sea boils with the seething waters.”
