Eclogue

The voice of congratulation and flattery was not, however, silent; and we may still peruse, with pleasure and contempt, an eclogue, which was composed on the accession of the emperor Carus. Two shepherds, avoiding the noontide heat, retire into the cave of Faunus.

Only one laborer in this temple of Minerva, however, was known to get so far as to attempt a translation of Virgil. He[…] repeated the whole of the first eclogue from memory, observing the intonations of the dialogue with much judgment and effect.

"Every body now is making what they call portraits of themselves and of their friends. Pastoral phrases are called into requisition; and under some name just stepped out of an eclogue, our dames and cavaliers flatter themselves and their friends, and are tant soit peu maligne."

Sometimes they marked the form of the silk-haired and graceful capella, with its wreathing horn and bright grey eye—which, still beneath Ausonian skies, recalls the eclogues of Maro, browsing half-way up the hills; and the grapes, already purple with the smiles of the deepening summer, glowed out from the arched festoons, which hung pendent from tree to tree.