Virgil Author:Virgil Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE GEORGICS. TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM SOTHEBY, ESQ. [PRINTED FROM THE THIRD AND LAST EDITION.] The following notes, of which the sole object is to faci... more »litate the English version to the English reader, have been added, more in conformity with the desire of others than from my own original intention.: they are chiefly compiled from remarks of former commentators; and are inserted in the words, and designated by the names of their respective authors. For the selection alone I hold myself responsible. But it would be unpardonable not to particularise the remarks of the Rev. W. Stawell and T. A. Knight, Esq. My estimation of the remarks of the former will be best evinced by the number and importance of the notes which I have selected from his printed illustrations : and the original observations of the latter, communicated in a letter to me, will give additional proofs of the sagacity of a writer, whose philosophical investigations and successful experiments have not only contri' buted to the speculative knowlege of this scientific age, but have assisted the labors, and meliorated the produce, of the farmer and the horticulturist. W. S. GEORGIC I. ARGUMENT. Virgil begins the poem by propounding the subjects of his four books—Agriculture, Planting, the Breeding of Cattle, and the Management of Bees. After invoking every rural deity, he particularly calls on Augustus Caesar to favor his attempt—He now opens the peculiar subject of the first book by pointing out the proper seasons for ploughing—He advises the husbandman to acquire a previous knowlege of different soils and climates, of the prevailing modes of cultivation, and of the productions suited to each country : and of these he gives several examples—He then resumes the subject, and mentions the seasons best adap...« less