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And the commentators, is is their use, observe a profound silence. Let us first examine the case of the infants; which we shall find can be clearedup only in our view of things; and should therefore be consdered as another strong presumption of its truth.

"Continuo auditae voces, vagitus et ingens,

"Infantumque anirae flentes in limine primo:
"Quos dulcis vitae exortes, et ab ubere raptos
"Abstulit atra dies, et funere mersit acerbo."

These appear to have been the cries and lamentings that Proclus tells us were heard in the Mysteries. So that we only want to know the original of so extraordinary an opinion. Which I take to have been just such another institution of the Legislator, for the preservation of the offspring, as that about Funeral Rites was for the parents. And nothing sure could more engage parents to the care and preservation of their young, than so terrible a doctrine. Nor are we to think, that their instinctive fondness needed no enforcement, or support to the discharge of this natural duty: for that most degenerate and horrid practice among the antients, of exposing infants, was universal; and had almost erased morality and instinct. So that it needed the strongest and severest check: and I am well persuaded it was that which occasioned this counterplot of the magistrate, in order to give instinct fair play, and call back banished nature. Nothing indeed could be more worthy of his care: for the destruction of children, as Pericles finely observed of youth, is like cutting off the spring from the year.

Here Mr. Bayle is again scandalized: "The first thing that "occurred on the entrance into the other world was the station "assigned to infants, who lamented and cried without ceasing; "and, next to it, that of men unjustly condemned to death. "Now what could be more shocking or scandalous than the "punishment of those little creatures who had yet committed "no sin, or of those persons whose innocence had been oppressed by calumny?" The first case we have already cleared up; the second we shall consider presently. But it is no wonder Mr. Bayle could not digest this doctrine of the infants; for I am very much mistaken if it did not stick with the great Plato himself. Who, relating the Vision of Erus the Pamphylian,

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* Καὶ τοῖς μυςηρίοις τοὺς μυσικοὺς ΘΡΗΝΟΥΣ μυσικῶς παρειλήφαμεν. In Comment. in Platonis Remp. 1. 10.

z La premiere chose que l'on rencontroit à l'entrée des Enfers, etoit la station des petits enfans, qui ne cessoient de pleurer, et puis celle des personnes injustement condamnées à la mort. Quoi de plus choquant, de plus scandaleux, que la peine de ces petites creatures, qui n'avoient encore commis nul péché; ou que la peine de ceux, dont l'innocence avoit été opprimée par la calomnie? Respons aux Quest. d'un Prov. p. 3. c. 22.

concerning the distribution of rewards and punishments in a future state, when he comes to the condition of infants, passes it over in this remarkable manner" But of children who died in their infancy, he reported certain other things NOT WORTHY TO BE RECORDED." Erus's account of what he saw in another world, is a summary of what the Egyptians taught of that matter. And I make no question, but the thing here unworthy of being recorded, was the doctrine of Infants in Purgatory: which Plato (not reflecting on this original and use) appears to have been shocked at.

But now, as to the falsely condemned, the most perplexing difficulty in the whole Aeneis, we must seek another solution:

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"Hos juxta, falso damnati crimine mortis ;

"Nec vero hae sine sorte datae, ine judice sedes.
"Quaesitor Minos urnam movet ille silentum

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Conciliumque vocat, vitasque et crimina discit.”

Here appears a strange jumble as wel as iniquity in this designment: the falsely accused' are no only in a place of punishment, but, being first represented under one predicament, they are afterwards distinguished, some as blameable, others as innocent. To clear up all this confusion, we must transcribe an old story told by Plato in his Gorgias: "There was this "law concerning mortals in the time of Saturn, and is now "always enforced by the Gods; that he who had lived a just "and pious life, should at his death be carried into the Islands "of the Blessed, and there possess all kinds of happiness, un"tainted with the evils of mortality: but that he who had lived unjustly and impiously, should be thrust into a place of punishment, the prison of divine justice, called Tartarus. "Now the judges, with whom the execution of this law was "intrusted, were, in the time of Saturn, and under the infancy "of Jove's government, living men, sitting in judgment on the living; and decreeing and appointing their abodes on the very day on which every one should die. This gave occasion to iniquitous and perverse judgments: on which account Pluto, "and those to whom the care of the happy Islands was com"mitted, went to Jupiter, and told him, that men came to them wrongly judged, both when acquitted and when condemned. "To which the Father of the Gods made this reply: I will put a stop to this evil, says he. These wrong judgments are partly occasioned by the corporeal covering of the persons

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2 Τῶν δὲ εὐθὺς γενομένων, καὶ ὀλίγον χρόνον βιούντων περὶ ἄλλα ἔλεγεν ΟΥΚ ΑΞΙΑ MNHMHZ. De Rep. 1. 10. p. 615. Ser. Ed.

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b Servius on the place characterizes them in this manner:-" Qui sibi per simplicitatem adesse nequiverunt."

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judged; for they are tried while living: now many have their "corrupted minds hid under a fair outside, adorned with birth "and riches; and when they come to their trial, they have many witnesses at hand to testify for their good life and con"versation: this perverts the process, and blinds the eyes of "justice. Another cause of this evil is, that the judges them"selves are likewise encumbered with the same corporeal co"vering: the mind is hid and enveloped in eyes and ears, and "an impenetrable tegument of flesh. All these are bars and "obstacles to right judgment, as well their own covering, as "the covering of those they judge. In the first place then, says he, we are to provide that they no longer have a fore"knowledge of the day of death, which they now foresee: we “shall therefore give this in charge to Prometheus, to take "away their prescience and then provide that they who come "to judgment be stripped naked of all their disguises: for they "are from henceforth to receive it in another world. And as they are to be quite sripped, it is but fit the judges should "be so too: that, at the arrival of every new inhabitant, they being divested of all family and relations, and every worldly "ornament left behind, soul may look on soul, and be thereby "enabled to pass a righteous judgment. I therefore, who "foresaw all these things before you felt them, have taken care 66 to constitute my own sons judges: two of them, Minos and

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"Rhadamanthus, are Asiatics; the third, Aeacus, an Eu"ropean: these, when they die, shall have their tribunal erected "in the Shades, just in that part of the highway where the two “roads divide, the one leading to the happy Islands, the other "to Tartarus: Rhadamanthus shall judge the Asiatics, and "Aeacus the Europeans. But to Minos I give the superior authority of hearing appeals, when any thing obscure or diffi

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The original to 'Oplaλpoùs nai ära, adds idols, teeth. If this be the true reading, I presume Plato intended by it, to ridicule the Athenian judges; who, like more modern ones, ont of impatience for their dinner, sometimes acquit or condemn before they were possessed of the merits of the cause: but as this seems too ludicrous a circumstance for the subject, I suspect it rather to be an unmeaning blunder of some old transcriber.

d That rous and aurav relate here only to the judges, appears plain from the following considerations. 1. Plato is speaking only of the judges from the words δι οὖν δικασαι, &c., and resumes the subject of those judged at the words ἔπειτα yuuvoùs. 2. A judicature is here abolished, and the circumstance of the abolition is the taking away a prescience. If it was not only the prescience of the judges, it was their authority, and the taking it away was indeed the abolition of the jurisdiction, which is the point proposed. But if it was the general prescience of mankind, then it was no authority, and the taking it away was no abolition of the jurisdiction, contrary to what it is here proposed to be. It is true, it appears that the persons judged had a knowledge of the day of judgment, by being so well provided to evade an impartial examination. But this we must reasonably suppose to be effected by that advantage, which the practice of all judicatories give, in giving notice to the person judged of his day of trial.

"eult shall perplex the other's judgments; that every one may " have his due abode assigned him with the utmost equity."

The matter now begins to clear up; and we see plainly that the circumstance of the falsely condemned alludes entirely to this old fable: and that by falso damnati crimine mortis," Virgil did not mean, as one would imagine, " innocentes addicti "morti ob injustam calumniam," but homines indigne et perperam adjudicati;" not men falsely condemned, but wrongly judged, whether to acquittal or conviction: for con demnation being oftenest the sentence of justice, the greater part is put figuratively for the whole: what follows,

and,

"Nec vero hae sine sorte datae, sine judice sedes,"

"Vitasque et crimina discit,”

agreeing only to this interpretation (as supposing a wrong sen
tence in acquittal, as well as condemnation), confirms the truth
of it; and thus the whole becomes consistent. One only diffi-
culty remains, and that, to confess the truth, hath arisen rather
from a mistake of Virgil's than of his readers. We find these
people yet unjudged, fixed already in an assigned district, with
other criminals, in Purgatory. But they are wrong stationed,
through an oversight of the Poet; which, had he lived to per-
fect the Aeneis, doubtless he would have reformed: for we see,
by the fable, they should have been placed on the borders of
the three divisions, in that part of the high road that divides
itself in two, which lead to Tartarus and Elysium; thus,
afterwards, described by the Poet:

"Hic locus est, partes ubi se via findit in ambas.
"Dextera, quae Ditis magni sub moenia tendit:
"Hic iter Elysium nobis; at laeva malorum
"Exercet poenas, et ad impia Tartara mittit.”

It only now remains to consider the ground and original of the
Fable; which, I think, was this: It was an Egyptian custom,
as we are told by Diodorus Siculus, for judges to be appointed
at every one's interment; to examine their past lives, and to

e Tom. I. p. 523. Serr. Ed.

f He that thinks this too licentious a figure, perhaps will be inclined to believe, that the Poet wrote,

"Hōs juxta, falso damnati tempore mortis:"

Which both points up to the fable, from whence this circumstance was borrowed, and hints at the original of that fable as here explained; and besides this agrees best with the context. But a transcriber not knowing what to make of " tempore mortis," (it being only to be explained by this passage of Plato) might be easily tempted to change it into " crimine mortis."

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condemn and acquit, according to the evidence. These judges were of the priesthood; and so, it is probable, taught, like the priests of the Church of Rome, that their decrees were ratified in the infernal Shades: partiality and corruption would, in time, pervert their sentence; and spite and favour prevail over Justice: as this might scandalize the people, it would be found necessary to teach that the judgment, which influenced every one's final doom, was reserved for the judicature of the other world. However the priest took care that all should not go out of his hands: and when he could be no longer Judge, he contrived to turn Evidence; and no doubt found his account in it: as appears by this antient inscription, "Ego Sextus Anicius "Pontifex testor honeste hunc vixisse: Manes ejus inveniant "quietem"."

This I take to be what gave birth to the general fable: but there is one circumstance this does not so clearly account for; namely, of the judges passing sentence in life, and predicting the day of the criminal's death; and the order to Prometheus, on the abolition of their judicature, to take away this gift of prescience. To understand these things, we must suppose, what is very probable, that the custom, mentioned above by Diodorus, was only the succession of a more early one; where the priests judged the living criminal for those crimes that the civil tribunal could not so conveniently take notice of; which is the only justifiable use of an ecclesiastical jurisdiction, with coactive power. If this be so, then, by "predicting the day of "the criminal's death" was meant "the infliction of a capital punishment;" and, by " Prometheus's taking the gift from "them," the "civil magistrate's abolition of the jurisdiction:" and this name was not ill assigned to him, who forms the minds and manners of the people by the plastic arts of society. This, in my opinion, was the original of Plato's fable: and he seems plainly to have had that original in mind, when he makes Socrates introduce it thus: "Hear then, as they say, a cele"brated tale; which you, I imagine, will call a fable, but I a true story."

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I hope this perplexed matter is now unravelled. How much it wanted explanation, may be seen by what one of the greatest geniuses of his time hath said of it in a discourse wrote to illustrate Aeneas's Descent into Hell: "There are three kinds of persons," says this celebrated author, "described, as being "situated on the Borders; and I can give no reason for their being stationed there in so particular a manner, but because "none of them seem to have had a proper right to a place

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g Fabius Celsus Inscript. Antiq. 1. 3.

Η ΣΩΚΡ. "Ακει δὴ (φησί) μάλα καλοῦ λόγε, ὃν σὺ μὲν ἡγήσῃ μῦθον, ὡς ἐγὼ οἶμαι ἐγὼ δε λόγον.

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