.
This habit was apparently a composite product. The ingredients are the
capacity for wonder that we find in some great poets like Wordsworth and
Plato, a genius for noting details, bred in him as in Lucretius by long
occupation with deductive methods of philosophy,--scientific pursuits
have thus enriched modern poetry also--and a sure aesthetic sense.
This power of observation has been overlooked by many of Vergil's
commentators. Conington, for example, has frequently done the poet an
injustice by assuming that Vergil was in error whenever his statements
seem not to accord with what we happen to know. We have now learned to be
more wary. It is usually a safer assumption that our observation is
in error. A recent study of "trees, shrubs and plants of Vergil,"
illuminating in numberless details, has fallen into the same error here
and there by failing to notice that Vergil wrote his _Bucolics_ and
_Georgics_ not near Mantua but in southern Italy. The modern botanical
critic of Vergil should, as Mackail has said, study the flora of Campania
not of Lombardy. In every line of composition Vergil took infinite
pains to give an accurate setting and atmosphere. Carcopino[6] has just
astonished us with proof of the poet's minute study of topographical
details in the region of Lavinium and Ostia, Mackail[7] has vindicated
his care as an antiquarian, Warde Fowler[8] has repeatedly pointed
out his scrupulous accuracy in portraying religious rites, and now
Sergeaunt,[9] in a study of his botany, has emphasized his habit of
making careful observations in that domain.

[Footnote 6: Carcopino, _Virgile et les origines d'Ostie_.]

[Footnote 7: Mackail, _Journal of Roman Studies_, 1915.]

[Footnote 8: Warde Fowler, _Religious Experience of the Roman
People_. p. 408.]

[Footnote 9: Sergeaunt, _Trees, Shrubs, and Plants of Virgil_.]

This modern habit it is that makes the _Georgics_ read so much like
Fabre's remarkable essays. The study of the bees in the fourth book is,
of course, not free from errors that nothing less than generations of
close scrutiny could remove. But the right kind of observing has begun.
On the other hand the book is not merely a farmer's practical manual
on how to raise bees for profit. The poet's interest is in the amazing
insects themselves, their how and why and wherefore. It is the mystery
of their instincts, habits, and all-compelling energy that leads him to
study the bees, and finally to the half-conceal