I had passed over in silence one argument of the Bishop of Gloucester, or rather of Scarron and the Bishop of Gloucester; since the former found the remark, and the latter furnished the inference. Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere divos, cries the unfortunate Phlegyas. In the midst of his torments, he preaches justice and piety, like Ixion in Pindar. A very useful piece of advice, says the French buffoon, for those who were already damned to all eternity: Cette sentence est bonne et belle: From this judicious piece of criticism his lordship argues, that Phlegyas was preaching not to the dead, but to the living; and that Virgil is only describing the mimic Tartarus, which was exhibited at Eleusis for the instruction of the initiated. I shall transcribe one or two of the reasons, which Dr. Jortin condescends to oppose to Scarron's criticism. "To preach to the damned, says he, is labour in vain. And what if it is? It might be part of his punishment, to exhort himself and others, when exhortations were too late. This admonition, as far as it relates to himself and his companions in misery, is to be looked upon not so much as an admonition to mend, but a bitter sarcasm, and reproaching of past iniquities. "It is labour in vain. But in the poetical system, it seems to have been the occupation of the damned to labour in vain, to catch at meat and drink that fled from them, &c. "His instruction, like that of Ixion in Pindar, might be for the use of the living. You will say, how can that be?" Surely nothing is more easy and intelligible. The muses hear him-The muses reveal it to the poet, and the inspired poet reveals it to mankind. And so much for Phlegyas and Monsieur Scarron." It is prettily observed by Dr. Jortin, "That Virgil, after having shone out with full splendour through the sixth book, sets at last in a cloud." The ivory gate puzzles every commentator, and grieves every lover of Virgil: yet it affords no advantages to the Bishop of Gloucester. The objection presses as hard on the notion of an initiation, as on that of a real descent to the shades. "The troublesome conclusion still remain as it was; and from the manner in which the hero is dismissed after the ceremonies, we learn, that in those initiations, the machinery, and the whole show, was (in the poet's opinion) a representation of things, which had no truth or reality. "Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto: "Dreams in general may be called vain and decitful, somnia vana, or somnia falsa, if you will, as they are opposed to the real objects which present themselves to us when we are awake. But when false dreams * The doctrine's good, and spoken well; are opposed to true ones, there the epithet falsa has another meaning. True dreams represent what is real, and show what is true; false dreams represent things which are not, or which are not true. Thus Homer and Virgil, and many other poets, and indeed the nature of the thing, distinguish them." Dr. Jortin, though with reluctance, acquiesces in the common opinion, that by six unlucky lines, Virgil is destroying the beautiful system, which it has cost him eight hundred to raise. He explains too this preposterous conduct, by the usual expedient of the poet's Epicureism. I only differ from him in attributing to haste and indiscretion, what he considers as the result of design. Another reason, both new and ingenious, is assigned by Dr. Jortin, for Virgil explaining away his hero's descent into an idle dream. "All communication with the dead, the infernal powers, &c. belonged to the art magic, and magic was held in abomination by the Romans." Yet if it was held in abomination, it was supposed to be real. A writer would not have made his court to James the First, by representing the stories of witchcraft as the phantoms of an overheated imagination. Whilst I am writing, a sudden thought occurs to me, which, rude and imperfect as it is, I shall venture to throw out to the public. It is this. After Virgil, in imitation of Homer, had described the two gates of sleep, the horn and the ivory, he again takes up the first in a different sense: Quâ veris facilis datur exitus umbris. The true shades, veræ umbræ, were those airy forms which were continually sent to animate new bodies, such light and almost immaterial natures as could without difficulty pass through a thin transparent substance. In this new sense, Æneas and the Sybil, who were still encumbered with a load of flesh, could not pretend to the prerogative of true shades. In their passage over Styx, they had almost sunk Charon's boat. Gemuit sub pondere cymba Sutilis, et multam accepit rimosa paludem. Some other expedient was requisite for their return; and since the horn gate would not afford them an easy dismission, the other passage, which was adorned with the polished ivory, was the only one that remained either for them, or for the poet. By this explanation, we save Virgil's judgment and religion, though I must own, at the expense of an uncommon harshness and ambiguity of expression. Let it only be remembered, that those, who in desperate cases conjecture with modesty, have a right to be heard with indulgence. A DISSERTATION ON THE SUBJECT OF THE MAN WITH THE IRON MASK. THE mysterious history of the famous French prisoner, known by the appellation of "the Man with the Iron Mask," is related by M. Voltaire, in the Siècle de Louis XIV., and in the Questions sur l'Encyclopédie. That writer, the most sceptical and lively of his age, never attempts either to contest the truth, or to reveal the secret, of that wonderful affair. "I know of no fact more extraordinary or better established," is the just conclusion of his first account. In his subsequent additions, he refutes with force and contempt the idle suppositions that this unknown prisoner was the Duc de Beaufort, the Count de Vermandois, or the Duke of Monmouth. At length, breaking off abruptly, he throws out a dark intimation," that he knows more about it, perhaps, than Father Grifet, and that he will say no more on the subject." If we are disposed to exercise our curiosity and conjectures upon this historical anecdote, we must steadily remember, that no hypothesis can deserve the least credit, unless it corresponds with and explains the following circumstances: 1. The prisoner who passed his melancholy life in the Isles de St. Marguerite and the Bastile, was called Marchiali. As the name was most assuredly fictitious, this circumstance seems, and indeed is, of small importance. However, in case an Italian was either the author of his birth, or the guardian of his infancy, a name drawn from that language would most naturally present itself. 2. Marchiali was buried secretly and by night, in the parish church of St. Paul's, on the third day of March in the year 1703, as is proved by the journal of Father Grifet, who was entrusted with the very delicate employment of confessor to the Bastile. A few days before his death, the unknown prisoner told his physician that he believed himself about sixty years of age. If he reckoned with precision, he was born in the spring of the year 1643, about the time of the death of Louis XIII. But the dreary hours of a prison move slowly, and the infirmities of age are hastened by grief and solitude. Marchiali could speak only from conjecture; nor is it unlikely that he might be somewhat younger than he supposed himself. 3. He was conducted to the Isles de St. Marguerite on the coast of Provence, some months after the death of Cardinal Mazarin ; that is to say, about the end of the year 1661, or the beginning of 1662. This is the first among the few events of his life. M. de Voltaire mentions, in one place, a previous confinement at Pignerol; but without being perfectly clear, or even consistent on that head. 4. Marchiali, whoever he was, had never acted any distinguished part on the public theatre of the world. The sudden absence of such a person, in any part of Europe, would infallibly have occasioned much wonder and enquiry, some traces of which must have reached our knowledge. But in this instance, using the amplest latitude of time, we cannot even discover any one important death, that leaves the minutest opening for our most licentious suspicions. 5. An illustrious birth was therefore the only advantage by which the prisoner could be distinguished; and his birth must indeed have been illustrious, since, when Monsieur de Louvois made him a visit, he spoke to him standing, and avec une considération qui tenait du respect. We must ascend very high ere we attain a rank which that proud and powerful minister of the French monarchy could think it his duty to respect. 6. The most extraordinary precautions were employed, not only to secure, but conceal, this mysterious captive; and his guards were ordered to kill him, if he made the least attempt to discover himself. That order, as well as the silver plate which he threw out of the prison window, after writing something upon it, and which fell into the hands of an illiterate fisherman, sufficiently prove that he was acquainted with his own name and condition. The mask, which he never was permitted to lay aside, shows the apprehension of the discovery of some very striking resemblance. 7. Prisoners of such alarming importance are seldom suffered to live. Of all precautions, the dagger and the bowl are undoubtedly the surest. Nothing but the most powerful motives, or, indeed, the tenderest ties, could have stopped the monarch's hand, and induced him rather to risk a discovery, than to spill the blood of this unfortunate man. He was lodged in the best apartment of the Bastile, his table was served in the most delicate manner, he was allowed to play on the guitar, and supplied with the finest laces and linen, of which he was passionately fond. Every kind attention was studiously practised, that could in any wise alleviate the irksomeness of his perpetual imprisonment. 8. When Monsieur de Chamillard, in the year 1721, was on his death-bed, his son-in-law, the Maréchal de la Feuillade, begged on his knees, that he would disclose to him that mysterious transaction. The dying minister refused to gratify this unreasonable curiosity. "It was the secret of the state, (he said,) and he had taken an oath never to divulge it." The prisoner had then been dead eighteen years, and Louis XIV. almost six. It must have been a secret of no common magnitude that could still affect the peace and welfare of future generations. Before we proceed to a probable solution of these strange circumstances, let us try to connect them with some facts of a more public and general nature. 1. The doubtful birth of Louis XIV. often occurs, in conversation, as the subject of historical scepticism. The first grounds of the suspicion are obvious. He was born after a sterile union of twenty-three years between Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria. But as such an event, however unfrequent, is neither destitute of possibility, nor even of example, the scandalous rumour would long since have died away in oblivion, had it not derived additional strength from the character and situation of the royal pair. 2. Though Louis XIII. wanted not either parts or courage, his character was degraded by a coldness and debility, both of mind and body, which had little affinity with his heroic father. Had his indifference towards the sex been confined to the queen, it might have been considered as the mere effect of personal dislike; but his chaste amours with his female favourites betrayed to the laughing court, that the king was less than a man. 3. Without reviving all the obsolete scandal of the Fronde, we may respectfully insinuate that Anne of Austria's reputation of chastity was never so firmly established as that of her husband. To the coquetry of France, the queen united the warm passions of a Spaniard. Her friends acknowledge that she was gay, indiscreet, vain of her charms, and strongly addicted at least to romantic gallantry. It is well known that she permitted some distinguished favourites to entertain her with soft tales of her beauty and their love; and thus removed the distant ceremony, which is perhaps the surest defence of royal virtue. Anne of Austria passed twenty-eight years with a husband, alike incapable of gratifying her tender or her sensual inclinations. At the age of forty-three, she was left an independent widow, mistress of herself, and of the kingdom. 4. The civil wars which raged during the minority of Louis XIV. arose from the blind and unaccountable attachment of the queen to Cardinal Mazarin, whom she obstinately supported against the universal clamour of the French nation. The Austrian pride, perhaps, and the useful merit of the minister, might determine the queen to brave an insolent opposition; but a connexion, formed by policy, might very easily terminate in love. The necessity of business would engage that princess in many a secret and midnight conference with an Italian of an agreeable person, vigorous constitution, loose morals, and artful address. The amazing anecdote hinted at in the honest memoirs of La Porte, sufficiently proves that Mazarin was capable of employing every expedient to insinuate himself into every part of the royal family. 5. If Anne of Austria yielded to such opportunities, and to so artful a lover, if she became a mother after her husband's death, her weakness, and the consequences of it, would have been carefully screened from the eye of curious malignity. When Louis XIV. succeeded to the possession of the kingdom, and of the fatal secret, he was deeply interested in the guard of his own, and of his mother's honour. Ĥad her frailty been revealed to the world, the living proof would have awakened and confirmed all the latent suspicions, diffused a spirit of distrust and division among the people, and shaken the hereditary claim of the monarch. If the strong grasp of Louis XIV. retained the French sceptre, the doubt and the danger were entailed on future ages. In some feeble, or infant reign, an ambitious Condé might embrace the fair pretence to assert the right to |