The memorable lines on spring in the second book are cast into
the form of old poetry, but the basis of them is Epicurean energism, as
in Lucretius' prooemium. Vergil's study of evolution had for him also
united man and nature, making the romance of the _Georgics_ possible; it
had shaped a kind of scientific animism that permitted him to accept the
language of the simple peasant even though its connotations were for him
more complex and subtle.
Finally, the careful reader will discover in Vergil's nature poetry a
very modern attention to details such as we hardly expect to find before
the nineteenth century. Here again Vergil is Lucretius' companion.
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.
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