great national poem of
the Aeneid. In many passages it is an imitation of the Iliad and the
Odyssey. In his didactic poems, known as the Bucolics, Virgil has made
use of Theocritus, while in the Georgics he has chosen Hesiod as his
model. The later didactic poets of all ages have imitated Virgil,
particularly in England, where Thomson's Seasons is a thoroughly
Virgilian poem. It is easy to see in Virgil where borrowed methods end
and native strength begins; for, in spite of being close imitators of
the Greek, there is a character peculiar to the writers of Rome by
means of which they have acquired an appearance of dignity and
worthiness all their own.

HEROIC POETRY.

The traditions of all nations go back to an age of heroes. Nature,
also, has had her time of stupendous greatness, a period of great
revolutions in nature, of which we can see traces to this day; and of
huge animals, whose bones are still being dug up. The history of
civilization also has its period of great achievements, and poetry has
had its time of the wonderful and gigantic. In numerous heroic poems of
different nations we can trace the unity of all heroic personages, as
in the Iliad and the Odyssey of Greece, the Sagas of the North in the
Nibelungen-lied, and the Ramayon of the Orient. Freedom, greatness and
heroism are embodied in these poems, and many of them breathe a martial
spirit.

We find the same character, however touched by local color, in all
these beautiful traditions of whatever nation or clime; at the zenith
of success, in the spring-time of youth and hope, on the very eve of
joy unutterable, there often seizes on the soul of man an overwhelming
sense of the hollowness and fleetingness of life. It is this touch of
the spiritual which raises these old heroic poems to such sublime
beauty and power. Poetry of this kind implies a nation, one which is
still, or has been, great; one which has a past, a legendary history,
vivid recollections, and an original and poetical manner of thought, as
well as a clearly defined mythology.

Poetry of this order--lyric as well as epic--is much more the child of
nature than of art. These great mythological poems for hundreds of
years were never written; but were committed to memory, sung by the
bards, and handed down from one generation to another until in time
they were merged, after the Christian era, into the historical heroic
poems. These in turn were the origin of the chivalrous poetry which