Note 12 — SUMMER:
Reading edition
This is taken from Virg. Ecl. viii. 12.—Wakefield.
Dryden's translation, ver. 17:
Amidst thy laurels let this ivy twine, Thine was my earliest muse.
Ivy, with the Romans, was the emblem of literary success, and the laurel crown was worn by a victorious general at a triumph. As Pollio, to whom Virgil addressed his eighth eclogue, was both a conqueror and a poet, the double garland allotted to him was appropriate, but there was no fitness in the application of the passage to Garth.