Athens, than with the laws of Sparta. We will, therefore, reflect a moment on the true nature and plan of the Æneid. po An epic fable must be important as well as interesting great actions, great virtues, and great distresses, are the peculiar province of heroic etry. This rule seems to have been dictated by nature and experience, and is very different from those chains in which genius has been bound by artificial criticism. The importance I speak of, is not indeed always dependant on the rank or names of the personages. Columbus, exploring a new world with three sloops and ninety sailors, is a hero worthy. of the epic muse; yet our imagination would be much more strongly affected by the image of a virtuous prince saved from the ruins of his country, and conducting his faithful followers through unknown seas and through hostile lands. Such is the hero of the Æneid. But his peculiar situation suggested other beauties to the Poet, who had an opportunity of adorning his subject with whatever was most pleasing in Grecian fable, or most illustrious in Roman history. Æneas had fought under the walls of Ilium; and conducted to the banks of the Tiber a colony from which Rome claimed her origin. The character of the hero is expressed by one of his friends in a few words; and though drawn by a friend, does not seem to be flattered: Rex erat Æneas nobis ; quo justior alter Nec pietate fuit, nec bello major et armis.* These INTO THE MYSTERIES; and particularly a very exact one of the SPECTACLES of the ELEUSINIAN."* This general notion is supported with singular ingenuity, dressed up with an easy yet pompous display of learning, and delivered in a style much fitter for the Hierophant of Eleusis, than for a modern critic, who is observing a remote object through the medium of a glimmering and doubtful light: Ibant obscuri, solâ sub nocte, per umbram. His lordship naturally enough pursues two dif ferent methods, which unite, as he apprehends, in the same conclusion. From general principles peculiar to himself, he infers the propriety and even necessity of such a description of the mysteries; and from a comparison of particular circumstances, he labours to prove that Virgil has actually introduced it into the Æneid. Each of these methods shall be considered separately. As the learned Prelate's opinions branch themselves out into luxuriant systems, it is not easy to resume them in a few words. I shall, however, attempt to give a short idea of those general principles, which occupy, I know not how, so great a share of the Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated. "The whole system of Paganism, of which the mysteries were an essential part, was instituted by See Warburton's Dissertation, &c. in the third volume cí Mr. Warton's Virgil. I shall quote indifferently that Dissertation or the Divine Legation itself. the the ancient lawgivers for the support and benefit of society. The mysteries themselves were a school of morality and religion, in which the vanity of Polytheism,* and the unity of the First Cause, were revealed to the initiated. Virgil, who intended his immortal poem for a republic in action, as those of Plato and Tully were in precept, could not avoid displaying this first and noblest art of government. His perfect lawgiver must be initiated, as the ancient founders of states had been before him; and as Augustus himself was many ages afterwards." What a crowd of natural reflections must occur to an unbiassed mind! Was the civil magistrate the mover of the whole machine; the sole contriver, or at least the sole support of religion? Were ancient laws ALWAYS designed for the benefit of the people, and NEVER for the private interest of the lawgiver? Could the first fathers of rude societies instruct their new-made subjects in philosophy as well as in agriculture? Did they all agree, in Britain as in Egypt, in Persia as in Greece, to found these secret schools on the same common principle; which subsisted nearly eighteen hundred years at Eleusist in its primæval purity? Can these things be? Yes, replies the learned Prelate, they are: " Egypt was the mys * At least of the vulgar polytheism, by revealing that the di majorum gentium had been mere mortals. + From their institution, 1399 years before the Christian æra, (Marm. Arundel. Ep. 14.) till their suppression, towards the end of the fourth century. terious mother of Religion and Policy; and the arts of Egypt were diffused with her colonies over the ancient world. Inachus carried the mysteries into Greece, Zoroaster into Persia,* &c. &c."—I retire from so wide a field, in which it would be easy for me to lose both myself and my adversary, The ANCIENT WORLD, EIGHTEEN CENTURIES, and FOUR HUNDRED AUTHORS GENUINE AND APOCRY PHAL,† would, under tolerable management, fur * Though I hate to be positive, yet I would almost venture to affirm, that Zoroaster's connection with Egypt is no, where to be found, except in the D. L. + See a list of four hundred authors, quoted, &c. in the D. L. from St. Austin and Aristotle down to Scarron and Rabelais. Amongst these authors we may observe Sanchoniatho, Orpheus, Zaleucus, Charondas, the Oracles of Porphyry, and the History of Jeffrey of Monmouth. The bishop has entered the lists with the tremendous Bentley, who treated the laws of Zaleucus and Charondas as the forgenes of a sophist. A whole section of mistakes or misrepresentations is devoted to this controversy: but Bentley is no more, and W-n may sleep in peace. I shall, however, disturb his repose, by asking him on what authority he supposes that the old language of the Twelve Tables was altered for the convenience of succeeding ages. The fragments of those laws, collected by Lipsius, Sylburgius, &c. bear the stamp of the most remote antiquity. Lipsius himself (tom. i. p. 206) was highly delighted with those antiquissima verba: but what is much more decisive, Horace (L. ii. Ep. i. ver. 23), Seneca (Epistol. 114), and Aulus Gellius (XX. 1), rank those laws amongst the oldest remains of the Latin tongue. Their obsolete language was admired by the lawyers, ridiculed by the wits, and pleaded by the friends of antiquity as an excuse for the frequent obscurities of that code. Had an adversary to the Divine Legation been guilty of this mistake, I am afraid it would have been styled an egregion blunder. nish some volumes of controversy; and since I have perused the two thousand and fourteen pages of the unfinished Legation, I have less inclination than ever to spin out volumes of laborious trifles. I shall, however, venture to point out a fact, not very agreeable to the favourite notion, that Paganism was entirely the religion of the magistrate. The oracles were not less ancient, nor less venerable than the mysteries. Every difficulty, religious or civil, was submitted to the decision of those infallible tribunals. During several ages no war could be undertaken, no colony founded, without the sanction of the Delphic oracle; the first and most celebrated among several hundred others. Here then we might expect to perceive the directing hand of the magistrate. Yet when we study their history with attention, instead of the alliance between church and state, we can discover only the ancient alliance between the avarice of the priest and the credulity of the people. For my own part, I am very apt to consider the mysteries in the same light as the oracles. An intimate connection subsisted between them:† See Vandale de Oraculis, p. 559. That valuable book contains whatever can now be known of oracles. I have borrowed his facts; and could with great ease have borrowed his quotations. + The prophet Alexander, whose arts are so admirably laid open by Lucian, instituted his oracle and his mysteries as regular parts of the same plan. It is here we may say, with the learned catholic, "Les nouveaux Saints me font douter des anciens." |