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16 opportunity of touching upon subjects of the day, and introducing, in the name and guise of shepherds, himself and his friends. Sometimes we can see through the disguise by the help of contemporary Roman history; more often, probably, the clue is lost to us through our very imperfect modern knowledge. We know pretty well that Tityrus,—who in the First Eclogue expresses his gratitude to the "godlike youth" who has preserved his little farm from the ruthless hands of the soldier colonists, while his poor neighbour Melibœus has lost his all,—can be no other than the poet himself, who thus compliments his powerful protector. So, too, in a later Eclogue, when the slave Mœris meets his neighbour Lycidas on the road, and tells him how his master has been dispossessed of his farm by the military colonists, and has narrowly escaped with his life, we may safely trust the traditional explanation, that in the master Menalcas we have Virgil again, troubled a second time by these intruders, and compelled to renew his application to his great friend at Rome. The traditional story was, that the poet was obliged to take refuge from the violence of the soldiers in the shop of a charcoal-burner, who let him out at a back-door, and eventually had to throw himself into the river Mincio to escape their pursuit. Lycidas, in the Pastoral, is surprised to hear of his neighbour's new trouble.

I surely heard, that all from where yon hills

Begin to rise, and gently slope again

Down to the stream, where the old beech-trees throw