COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

384 cosmos.
that account lose any of their individuality. Plato extols in
general terms, " the dark shade of the thickly-leaved planetree
; the luxuriance of plants and herbs in all the fragrance
of their bloom ;
and the sweet summer breezes which fan the
chirping swarms of grasshoppers." In Cicero's smaller
sketches of nature we find, as has lately been remarked by an
intelligent enquirer,* all things described as they still exist in
the actual landscape, we see the Liris shaded by lofty poplars,
and as we descend from the steep mountain behind the old
towers of Arpinum, we see the grove of oaks on the margin
of the Fibrenus, and the island now called Isola di Carneilo,
which is formed by the division of the stream, and whither
Cicero retired in order, as he said, to " give himself up to
meditation, reading, and writing." Arpinum, situated on the
Volscian hills, was the birth-place of the great statesman,
and its noble scenery no doubt exercised an influence on his
character in boyhood. Unconsciously to himself, the external
aspect of the surrounding scenery impresses itself upon the soul
of man, with an intensity corresponding to the greater or less
degree of his natural susceptibility, and becomes closely interwoven
with the deep original tendencies and the free natural
disposition of his mental powers.
In the midst of the eventful storms of the year 708
(from the foundation of Rome), Cicero found consolation in
his villas, alternately at Tusculum, Arpinum, Cunicea, and
Antium.
"
Nothing can be more delightful," he writes to
Atticus,f " than this solitude nothing more charming than
this country place, the neighbouring shore, and the view of the
sea. In the lonely Island of Astura, at the mouth of the river
of the same name, on the shore of the Tyrrhenian sea, no
human being disturbs me; and when early
in the morning I
retire to the leafy recesses of some thick and wild wood, I do
* See s. 431-434 of the admirable work by Rudolph Abeken, Rector
of the Gymnasium at Osnabriick, which appeared in 1835, under the
title of Cicero in seinen Briefen. The important addition relative to
the birthplace of Cicero is by H. Abeken, the learned nephew of the
author, who was formerly chaplain to the Prussian Embassy at Rome, and
is now taking part in the important Egyptian expedition of Professor
Lepsius. See also on the birthplace of Cicero, Yalery, Voy. hist, en
Italie, t. iii. p. 421.
f Cic., Ep. ad Atticum, arii. 9 and 15.