Vergil, Horace and Lucretius were more or less contemporaries of the Cankam poets. They appeared at a time when Rome had reached the peak of civilization, but their feeling for Nature runs through European poetry to this day. The Romans never ceased to be a country-loving people, and the cult of the country and the country villa so popular among the Romans has no apparent parallel in the Tamil country.

The Tamils were also great lovers of towns and cities. The description of South Indian sea-ports and inland capitals as detailed in the Tamil classics reveal town-planning on an extensive scale, with due attention to streets, to parks, to division into quarters, and to the general beauty and architecture of buildings, the prominent ones among which were convents of seven storeys. I wonder if in any other literature a city is used as the term of comparison for a lady, but such a simile is very common in ancient Tamil literature. When a poet wished to express the abundance and resource of joy and pleasure that a man derives from the woman whom he has married, or whom he wishes to marry, he can think of no better simile than a city which in its own way is full of abundance and resource, and where every sense may be gratified. A city was also the symbol of beauty, and hence the beauty of woman was also compared to the beauty of a city.

"Rich and resourceful is she like New York of the Americans", or "Meet me with all your virtues, London-like," may sound very strange to modern ears, but that is exactly what the ancient Tamil poets said with Tamil cities and towns as their terms of comparison. They chose cities and towns of historical importance or cities and towns which were prosperous and of greatest profit to king and people, and often the mention of a town of a certain kingdom was a graceful manner of paying a compliment to its sovereign. Women are often said to be as pretty or as resourceful-

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