WARBURTON'S EXAMINATION OF THE SIXTH AENEID. OUR subject having necessarily engaged us in a large historical account of the Mysteries; yet the form of the discourse not having afforded us an opportunity hitherto to take notice of their Shews and Representations, one of the most important parts of the Mysteries, and the only one remaining unspoken to; Virgil, in affording us a fresh proof of the sentiments of the best and wisest amongst the antients, concerning the service of the doctrine of a future state to society, will give us the opportunity we sought for: so that nothing will now be wanting to a thorough intelligence of this curious and interesting circumstance of antiquity. We hope, then, to make it very evident, that the masterpiece of the Aeneis, the famous sixth book, is nothing else but a description, and so designed by the author, of his hero's initiation into the Mysteries; and of one part of the SPECTACLES of the ELEUSINIAN: where every thing was done in shew and machinery; and where a representation of the history of Ceres afforded opportunity of bringing in the scenes of Heaven, Hell, Elysium, Purgatory, and all that related to the future state of men and heroes. But to make this, which hath at first sight so much the air of a paradox, the less shocking, it will not be improper to inquire into the nature of the Aeneis. Homer's two poems had each a plain simple story, to convey as simple a moral; and in this kind he is justly esteemed excellent. Virgil could make no improvements here: the Greek poet was complete and perfect; so that the patrons of the Roman, and even Scaliger himself, are confined to seek for his superior advantages in his episodes, descriptions, similes, and in the chastity and correction of his thoughts and diction; while all have overlooked the principal advantage he had over his great predecessor. He found the Epic Poem in possession of the first rank of human compositions; but this did not satisfy his large ambition: he was not content that its subject should be to instruct the world in morals, much less in physics, which was the ridiculous imagination of some antients, though he was fond of those inquiries, but aspired to make it a system of Politics. Accordingly the Aeneis is indeed as much such in verse, by example, as the republics of Plato and Tully were in prose, by precepts. Thus he advanced the Epic to a new state of perfection; and as Paterculus says of Menander,-"inveniebat, ne"que imitandum relinquebat." For though every one saw that Augustus was shadowed out in the person of Aeneas, yet imagining those political instructions, which were designed for the service of mankind at large, to be for the sole use of his master, they missed of its true nature: and in this ignorance, the succeeding epic writers, following a poem whose genius they did not understand, wrote worse than if they had only taken Homer, and his simple plan for their guides. A great modern Poet, and best judge of their merit, assures us of this fact; and what we have said helps to explain it: "The other epic poets," says this justly admired writer, "have used the same practice (that "of Virgil, of running two fables into one) but generally "carried it so far as to superinduce a multiplicity of fables, "destroy the unity of action, and lose their readers in an un"reasonable length of time."" Such was the revolution Virgil brought about in this noblest region of poetry; an improvement so great, that the subblimest genius had need of all the assistance the best poet could lend him nothing less than the joint aid of the Iliad and Odyssey being able to furnish out the execution of his great idea: for a system of politics delivered in the example of a great prince, must shew him in every public circumstance of life. Hence was Aeneas, of necessity, to be found voyaging with Ulysses, and fighting with Achilles: and I am persuaded, that that great admirer of Virgil, and best imitator of his correctness, last quoted, will be pleased to find this the case, rather than what he assigns for his master's conduct, in the following words: "Virgil, for want of so warm a genius, aided himself by "taking in a more extensive subject, as well as a greater length "of time, and contracting the design of both Homer's poems "into one"." a Preface to the Iliad of Homer. b See the same Preface. But if the improved nature of his subject necessitated him to violate that simplicity in the fable which Aristotle, and his interpreter Bossu, find so divine in Homer; he gained considerable advantages by it in other circumstances of the composition: For now, those ornaments and decorations, for whose insertion the critics could give no other reasons than raising the dignity of the poem, become necessarily inherent in the subject. Thus the choice of princes and heroes for actors of the scene, which were, before, only to grace it, now constitute the essence of the Poem: and the machinery and intervention of the Gods, on every occasion, which were to create the marvellous, become, in this improvement, an indispensable part of the action. It is in the very spirit of antient legislation, as we find in the beginning of this book, where we see the principal care of the Lawgiver was to possess the people with the belief of a Providence. This then is the true reason of so much machinery in the Aeneis; for which modern critics accuse the author of want of judgment; as following Homer too closely in a poem wrote in the refined and enlightened age of Rome. An excellent writer, and one who ought never to be mentioned but in terms of the highest esteem, speaking of the marvellous in Virgil: says, "If there be any instance in the Aeneid liable to exception upon this account, "it is in the beginning of the third book, where Aeneas is repre"sented as tearing up the myrtle that dropped blood. This cir"cumstance seems to have the marvellous without the probable, "because it is represented as proceeding from natural causes "without the interposition of any God, or rather supernatural "power capable of producing it." But when this amiable writer made this remark, he appears not to have recollected what Aeneas says on the occasion: 66 d "Nymphas venerabar agrestes, Gradivumque patrem, Geticis qui praesidet arvis, "Rite secundarent visus, omenque levarent." Nous ne trouverons point, dans la Fable de l'Eneide, cette simplicité qu' Aristote a trouvée si divine dans Homére.-Traité du Poeme Epique. I. 1. c 11. "Le retour," says Bossu, "d'un homme en sa maison, et la querelle "de deux autres, n'ayant rien de grand en soi, deviennent des actions illustres et "importantes, lorsque dans le choix des noms, le Poete dit que c'est Ulysse qui "retourne en Ithaque, et que c'est Achille et Agamemnon qui querellent."-He goes on" Mais il y a des actions qui d'elles mêmes sont tres importantes, comme l'establissement, ou la ruine d'un etat, ou d'une Religion. Telle est donc "l'action de l'Eneide, 1. 2. c. 19." He saw here a remarkable difference in the subjects: it is strange this should not have led him to see that the Aeneis is of a different species. eCe qui est beau dans Homére pourroit avoir été mal reçu dans les ouvrages d'un Poëte du tems d'Auguste. Idem, ib. 1. 3. c. 8. De l'admirable. Mr. Addison's Works, vol. 3. p. 816. quarto edition, 1721. |