creed of a religious society, like that of the mysteries. Luckily, indeed, I have no occasion to persuade myself of it; unless I should prefer his lordship's mere authority to the voice of antiquity, which assures me, that this system was either invented or imported into Greece by Pythagoras; from the writings of whose disciples Virgil might so very naturally borrow it. Anchises then proceeds to inform his son, that the souls both of men and of animals were of celestial origin, and (as I understand him) parts of the universal mind; but that by their union with earthly bodies they contracted such impurities as even death could not purge away. "Many expiations," continues the venerable shade," are requisite, before the soul, restored to its original simplicity, is capable of a place in Elysium. The far greater part are obliged to revisit the upper world, in other characters and in other bodies; and thus, by gradual steps, to reascend towards their first perfection." This moral transmigration was undoubtedly taught in the mysteries. As the bishop asserts this from the best authority, we are surprised at a sort of a diffidence, unusual to his lordship when he advances things from his own intuitive knowledge. In one place, this transmigration is part of the hidden doctrine of perfection; in another, it is one of those principles which were promiscuously communicated to all. The truth seems to be, that his lordship was afraid to rank among the secrets of the mysteries, what was professed and believed by so many nations and philosophers. The preexistence of the human soul is a very natural idea; and from that idea, speculations and fables of its successive revolution through various bodies will arise. From Japan to Egypt, the transmigration has been part of the popular and religious creed. Pythagoras § and Plato have endeavoured to demonstrate the truth of it, by facts, as well as by arguments. Of all these visions (which should have been confined to the poets) none is more pleasing and sublime, than that which Virgil has invented. Æneas sees before him his posterity, the heroes of ancient Rome, a long series of airy forms "Demanding life, impatient for the skies," and prepared to assume, with their new bodies, the little passions and transient glories of their destined lives. Having thus revealed the secret doctrine of the mysteries, the learned prelate examines the ceremonies. With the assistance of Meursius,** he pours out a torrent of erudition to convince us, that the scenes through which Æneas passed in his descent to the shades, *D. L. vol. i. p. 279. + Idem, p. 142. See our modern relations of Japan, China, India, &c. and for Egypt, Herodotus, lib. ii. § Ovid. Metamorph. xv. 69, &c. 158, &c. Plato in Phædro, and in Republic, lib. x. ¶ I shall mention here, once for all, that I do not always confine myself to the order of his lordship's proofs. ** Meursii Eleusinia, sive de Cereris Eleusina sacro. were the same as were represented to the aspirants in the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries. From thence his lordship draws his great conclusion, that the descent is no more than an emblem of the hero's initiation. A stanch polemic will feed a dispute, by dwelling on every accessory circumstance, whilst a candid critic will confine himself to the more essential points of it. I shall therefore readily allow, what I believe may in general be true, that the mysteries exhibited a theatrical representation of all that was believed or imagined of the lower world; that the aspirant was conducted through the mimic scenes of Erebus, Tartarus, and Elysium; and that a warm enthusiast, in describing these awful spectacles, might express himself as if he had actually visited the infernal regions.* All this I can allow, and yet allow nothing to the Bishop of Gloucester's hypothesis. It is not surprising that the copy was like the original; but it still remains undetermined, whether Virgil intended to describe the original or the copy. Lear and Garrick, when on the stage, are the same; nor is it possible to distinguish the player from the monarch. In the greenroom, or after representation, we easily perceive what the warmth of fancy and the justness of imitation had concealed from us. In the same manner it is from extrinsical circumstances, that we may expect the discovery of Virgil's allegory. Every one of those circumstances persuades me, that Virgil described a real, not a mimic world, and that scene lay in the infernal shades, and not in the temple of Ceres. The singularity of the Cumaan shores must be present to every traveller who has once seen them. To a superstitious mind, the thin crust, vast cavities, sulphureous streams, poisonous exhalations, and fiery torrents may seem to trace out the narrow confine of the two worlds. The Lake Avernus was the chief object of religious horror; the black woods which surrounded it, when Virgil first came to Naples, were perfectly suited to feed the superstition of the people.+ It was generally believed, that this deadly flood was the entrance of hell; and an oracle was once established on its banks, which pretended, by magic rites, to call up the departed spirits. § Æneas, who revolved a more daring enterprise, addresses himself to the priestess of those dark regions. Their conversation may perhaps inform us, whether an initiation, or a descent to the shades, was the object of this enterprise. She endeavours to deter the hero, by setting before him all the dangers of his rash undertaking : Facilis descensus Averni: Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis; Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras, These particulars are absolutely irreconcileable with the idea of initiation, but perfectly agreeable to that of a real descent. That + Strabo, lib. v. p. 168. § Diod. Sicul. lib. iv. p. 267, edit. Wesseling. *See D. L. vol. i. particularly p. 280. every step, and every instant, may lead us to the grave is a melancholy truth. The mysteries were only open at stated times, a few days at most in the course of the year. The mimic descent of the mysteries was laborious and dangerous, the return to light easy and certain. In real death, this order is inverted: These heroes, as we learn from the speech of Æneas, were Hercules, Orpheus, Castor and Pollux, Theseus, and Pirithous. Of all these, antiquity believed, that before their death they had seen the habitations of the dead; nor, indeed, will any of the circumstances tally with a supposed initiation. The adventure of Eurydice, the alternate life of the brothers, and the forcible intrusion of Alcides, Theseus, and Pirithous, would mock the endeavours of the most subtle critic, who would try to melt them down into his favourite mysteries. The exploits of Hercules, who triumphed over the king of terrors, Tartareum ille manû custodem in vincla petivit, was a wild imagination of the Greeks. But it was the duty of ancient poets to adopt and embellish these popular traditions: and it is the interest of every man of taste, to acquiesce in their poetical fictions. After this, we may leave ingenious men to search out what, or whether any thing gave rise to those idle stories. Diodorus Siculus represents Pluto as a kind of undertaker, who made great improvements in the useful art of funerals.§ Some have sought for the poetic hell in the mines of Epirus, and others in the mysteries of Egypt. As this last notion was published in French, six years before it was invented in English,** the learned author of the D. L. has been severely treated by some ungenerous adversaries.++ Appearances, it must be confessed, wear a very suspicious aspect but what are appearances, when weighed against his lordship's declaration, "That this is a point of honour in which he is particularly delicate; and that he may venture to boast, that he believes no author was * Eneid, vi. 129. + Idem, vi. 395. Homer, Odyss. lib. xi. ver. 623; Apoll. Biblioth. lib. ii. cap. 5. § Diodor. Sicul. lib. v. p. 386, edit. Wesseling. Le Clerc, Biblioth. Universelle, tom. vi. p. 55. ¶ By the Abbé Terrasson, in his philosophical romance of Sethos, printed at Amsterdam in the year 1732. See the third book, from beginning to end. The author was a scholar and a philosopher. His book has far more variety and originality than Telemachus. Yet Sethos is forgotten, and Telemachus will be immortal. That harmony of style, and the great talent of speaking to the heart and passions, which Fenelon possessed, was unknown to Terrasson. I am not surprised that Homer was admired by the one, and criticised by the other. ** See D. L. vol. i. p. 228, &c. The first edition was printed in London, in the year 1738. + Cowper's Life of Socrates, p. 102. ever more averse to take to himself what belonged to another." Besides, he has enriched this mysterious discovery with many collateral arguments, which would for ever have escaped all inferior critics. In the case of Hercules, for instance, he demonstrates, that the initiation and the descent to the shades were the same thing, because an ancient has affirmed that they were different; † and that Alcides was initiated at Eleusis, before he set out for Tænarus, in order to descend to the infernal regions. There is, however, a single circumstance, in the narration of Virgil, which has justly surprised critics, unacquainted with any but the obvious sense of the poet; I mean the ivory gate. The Bishop of Gloucester seizes this, as the secret mark of allegory, and becomes eloquent in the exultation of triumph. I could, however, represent to him, that in a work which was deprived of the author's last revision, Virgil might too hastily employ what Homer had invented, and at last unwarily slide into an Epicurean idea. § Let this be as it may, an obscure expression is a weak basis for an elaborate system; and whatever his lordship may choose to do, I had much rather reproach my favourite poet with want of care in one line, than with want of taste throughout a whole book. || Virgil has borrowed, as usual, from Homer his episode of the infernal shades, and, as usual, has infinitely improved what the Grecian had invented. If, among a profusion of beauties, I durst venture to point out the most striking beauties of the Sixth Book, I should perhaps observe, 1. That after accompanying the hero through the silent realms of night and chaos, we see with astonishment and pleasure a new creation bursting upon us; 2. That we examine, with a delight which springs from the love of virtue, the just empire of Minos; in which the apparent irregularities of the present system are corrected; and where the patriot who died for his country is happy, and the tyrant who oppressed it is miserable. 3. As we interest ourselves in the hero's fortunes, we share his feelings the melancholy Palinurus, the wretched Deiphobus, the indignant Dido, the Grecian kings who tremble at his presence, and the venerable Anchises who embraces his pious son, and displays to his sight the future glories of his race; all these objects affect us with a variety of pleasing sensations. Let us for a moment obey the mandate of our great critic, and consider these awful scenes as a mimic show, exhibited in the temple of Ceres, by the contrivance of the priest, or, if he pleases, of the * Letter from a late professor of Oxford, &c. p. 133. § Idem, vol. i. p. 283. Od. lib. iii. 3. The word and idea of quietus are perfectly Epicurean; but rather clash with the active passions displayed in the rest of Juno's speech. His lordship (D. L. vol. ii. p. 140,) accuses Virgil himself of a like inattention; which, with his usual gentleness, he calls an absurdity. legislator. Whatever was animated (I appeal to every reader of taste), whatever was terrible, or whatever was pathetic, evaporates into lifeless allegory: tenuem sine viribus umbram. -Dat inania verba, Dat sine mente sonum, gressusque effingit euntis. The end of philosophy is truth; the end of poetry is pleasure. I willingly adopt any interpretation which adds new beauties to the original; I assist in persuading myself, that it is just; and could almost show the same indulgence to the critic's as to the poet's fiction. But should a grave doctor lay out fourscore pages in explaining away the sense and spirit of Virgil, I should have every inducement to believe, that Virgil's soul was very different from the doctor's. I have almost exhausted my own, and probably my reader's patience, whilst I have obsequiously waited on his lordship, through the several stages of an intricate hypothesis. He must now permit me to allege two very simple reasons, which persuade me that Virgil has not revealed the secret of the Eleusinian mysteries, the first is his ignorance, and the second his discretion. I. As his lordship has not made the smallest attempt to prove that Virgil was himself initiated, it is plain that he supposed it, as a thing of course. Had he any right to suppose it? By no means: that ceremony might naturally enough finish the education of a young Athenian; but a barbarian, a Roman, would most probably pass through life without directing his devotion to the foreign rites of Eleusis. The philosophical sentiments of Virgil were still more unlikely to inspire him with that kind of devotion. It is well known that he was a determined Epicurean ;* and a very natural antipathy subsisted between the Epicureans and the managers of the mysteries. The celebration opened with a solemn excommunication of those atheistical philosophers, who were commanded to retire, and to leave that holy place for pious believers;† the zeal of the people was ready to enforce this admonition. I will not deny, that curiosity might sometimes tempt an Epicurean to pry into these secret rites; and that gratitude, fear, or other motives, might engage the Athenians to admit so' irreligious an aspirant. Atticus was initiated at Eleusis; but Atticus was the friend and benefactor of Athens.‡ These extraordinary exceptions may be proved, but must not be supposed. Nay, more; I am strongly inclined to think that Virgil was never out of Italy till the last year of his life. I am sensible, that it is not easy to prove a negative proposition, more especially when the materials of our knowledge are so very few and so very defec * See the Life of Virgil by Donatus, the Sixth Eclogue, and the Second Georgic, ver. 490. + Lucian in Alexandro, p. 489. Cornel. Nepos, in Vit. Attici, cap. 2, 3, 4. |