The merit of a first attempt is not always decisive: yet Virgil's first youthful poem shews that he cultivated his powers with incredible industry, and that no faculty expired in him through neglect. But how amiable and generous he was, is evident where he speaks from the heart: not only in the Georgics, and in all his pictures of pure still life; in the epigram on Syron's (coś, in vece di Sciron's) Villa: it is no less visible in his way of introducing those great spirits that beam in Roman story.
      (29-30. 1829.)
     
      Alla p.4316. Ben d'altra qualità e d'altro peso è la congettura del Niebuhr fondata in profondissima dottrina, e scienza dell'antichità, that the Teucrians and Dardanians, Troy and Hector, ought perhaps to be considered as Pelasgian:... that they were not Phrygians was clearly [4448]perceived by the Greek philologers, who had even a suspicion that they were no barbarians at all. (loc. cit. p.4431. fin., sezione intitolata The Oenotrians and Pelasgians, p.28.) Egli reca i fondamenti di questa sua propria e particolare opinione, ib. Nella sez. intit. Conclusion di quella parte della sua storia che concerne gli antichi popoli d'Italia, p.148, ripete questa sua congettura: In the very earliest traditions they (the Pelasgians) are standing at the summit of their greatness. The legends that tell of their fortunes, exhibit only their decline and fall: Jupiter had weighed their destiny and that of the Hellens; and the scale of the Pelasgians had risen. The fall of Troy was the symbol of their story.