The _Moretum_ is a pleasing idyll, describing the daily life of the peasant Simplus, translated probably from the Greek of Parthenius. On it Teuffel says, "Suevius had written a _Moretum_, and it is not improbable that the desire to surpass Suevius influenced Virgil in attempting the same task again." [19] Trifling as this circumstance is, nothing that throws any light on the growth of Virgil's muse can be wanting in interest.

Virgil was not one of those who startle the world by their youthful genius. His soul was indeed a poet's from the first, but the rich perfection of his verse was not developed until after years of severe labour, self-correction, and even failure. He began by essaying various styles; he gradually confined himself to one; and in that one he wrought unceasingly, always bringing method to aid talent, until, through various grades of immaturity, he passed to a perfection peculiarly his own, in which thought and expression are fused with such exceeding art as to elude all attempts to disengage them. If we can accept the _Culex_ in its present form as genuine, the development of Virgil's genius is shown to us in a still earlier stage. Whether he wrote it at sixteen or twenty-six (and to us the latter age seems infinitely the more probable), it bears the strongest impress of immaturity. It is true the critics torment us by their doubts. Some insist that it cannot be by Virgil. Their chief arguments are derived from the close resemblances (which they regard as imitations) to many passages in the _Aeneid_; but of these another, and perhaps a more plausible, explanation may be given.

The hardest argument to meet is that drawn from the extraordinary imperfection of the plot, which mars the whole consistency of the poem; [20] but even this is not incompatible with Virgil's authorship. For all ancient testimony agrees in regarding the _Culex_ of Virgil as a poem of little merit. [21] Amid the uncertainty which surrounds the subject, it seems best not to disturb the verdict of antiquity, until better grounds are discovered for assigning our present poem to a later hand. To us the evidence seems to point to the Virgilian authorship. The defect in the plot marks a fault to which Virgil certainly was prone, and which he never quite cast off. [22] The correspondences with the mythology, language, and rhythm of Virgil are just such as might be explained by supposing them to be his first opening conceptions on these points, which assumed afterwards a more developed form. [23] And this is the more probable because Virgil's mind created with labour, and cast and re-cast in the crucible of reflection ideas of which the first expression suggested itself in early life. Thus we find in the _Aeneid_ similes which had occurred in a less finished form in the _Georgics_; in both _Georgics_ and _Aeneid_ phrases or cadences which seem to brood over and strive to reproduce half-forgotten originals wrought out long before. Nothing is more interesting in tracing Virgil's genius, than to note how each fullest development of his talent subsumes and embraces those that had gone before it; how his mind energises in a continuous mould, and seems to harp with almost jealous constancy on strings it has once touched. The deeper we study him, the more clearly is this feature seen. Unlike other poets who throw off their stanzas and rise as if freed from a load, Virgil seems to carry the accumulated burden of his creations about with him. He imitates himself with the same elaborate assimilation by which he digests and reproduces the thoughts of others.

It is probable that Virgil suppressed all his youthful poetry, and intended the _Eclogues_ to be regarded as the first-fruits of his genius. [24] The pastoral had never yet been cultivated at Rome. Of all the products of later Greece none could vie with it in truth to nature. Its Sicilian origin bespoke a fresh inspiration, for it arose in a land where the muse of Hellas still lingered.