Ver. I.
The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn.
It's unlucky, they say, to stumble at the threshold, but what has a plenteous harvest to do here? Virgil would not pretend to prescribe rules for that which depends not on the husbandman's care, but the disposition of Heaven altogether. Indeed, the plenteous crop depends somewhat on the good method of tillage, and where the land's ill manur'd, the corn, without a miracle, can be but indifferent; but the harvest may be good, which is its properest epithet, tho' the husbandman's skill were never so indifferent. The next sentence is too literal, and when to plough had been Virgil's meaning, and intelligible to every body; and when to sow the corn, is a needless addition.
Ver. 3.
And when to geld the lambs, and sheer the swine,
Would as well have fallen under the cura boum, qui cultus habendo sit pecori, as Mr. D's deduction of particulars.
