Note Q — Front matter (continued 4)

The passage to which Michelet refers is found in the fourth book of the Georgics, and is thus translated by Dryden:—

"The secret in an easy method lies: Select four brawny bulls for sacrifice, Which on Lycæus graze, without a guide; Add four fair heifers yet in yoke untried: For these, four altars in their temple rear, And then adore the woodland powers with prayer. From the slain victims pour the streaming blood, And leave their bodies in the shady wood: Nine mornings thence, Lethean poppy bring, T' appease the manes of the poet's king: And, to propitiate his offended pride, A fatted calf and a black ewe provide: This finished, to the former woods repair. His mother's precepts he performs with care; The temple visits, and adores with prayer. Four altars raises, from his herds he calls, For slaughter, four the fairest of his bulls; Four heifers from his female store he took, All fair, and all unknowing of the yoke. Nine mornings thence, with sacrifice and prayers, The powers atoned, he to the grove repairs. Behold a prodigy! for, from within The broken bowels, and the bloated skin, A buzzing noise of bees his ears alarms, Straight issue through the sides assaulting swarms; Dark as a cloud they make a wheeling flight, Then on a neighbouring tree, descending light: Like a large cluster of black grapes they show, And make a large dependence from the bough."