SOURCE: "The Augustan Age: Virgil," in Latin Literature, 1895. Reprint by Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900, pp. 91–105.
Mackail was an English critic, biographer, and educator whose books include The Springs of Helicon (1909) and Studies in Humanism (1938). Primarily devoted to the study of Greek and English poetry, his work displays the a scholarly approach to literature, as well as a belief that the development of poetry is an organic process. In the excerpt below, Mackail traces the development of Vergil's skill from the Eclogues through the Georgics, culminating in the mature style displayed in the Aeneid.
