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The examples of great men, when they cannot serve as models, may serve as warnings to us. I should be very sorry to have discovered, that an ATHEISTICAL HISTORY* was used in the celebration of the mysteries, to prove the unity of the First Cause, and that an ANCIENT HYMN was sung, for the edification of the devout Athenians, which was most probably a MODERN FORGERY of some Jewish or Christian Impostor. Had I delivered THESE TWO DISCOVERIES, with an air of confidence and triumph, I should be still more mortified,

After all, as I am not apt to give the name of Demonstration to what is mere conjecture, his lordship may take advantage of my scepticism, and still affirm, that his favourite mysteries were schools of theism, instituted by the lawgiver. Yet unless Æneas is the lawgiver of Virgil's republic, he has no more business with the mysteries of

*The Fragment of Sanchoniatho's Phænician History. Eusebius and Bishop Cumberland have already observed, that the formation of the world is there attributed to the blind powers of matter, without the least mention of an intelligent cause.

+ Orpheus's Hymn to Muscus, quoted by Justin Martyr, and several other fathers, but rejected as spurious by Cudworth, (Intellectual System, p. 300,) by Leclerc, (Hist. Eccl. p. 692), and by Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical Hist. vol. i. p. 199), The first of these, the immortal Cudworth, is often celebrated by the Bishop of Gloucester; Leclerc's literary character is esta blished; and with respect to Dr. Jortin, I will venture to call him a learned and moderate critic. The few who may not choose to confess, that their objections are unanswerable, will allow that they deserve to be answered.

Athens,

Athens, than with the laws of Sparta. We will, therefore, reflect a moment on the true nature and plan of the Æneid.

An epic fable must be important as well as interesting: great actions, great virtues, and great distresses, are the peculiar province of heroic poetry. 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.*

Eneid, i. 548.

These

These three virtues, of JUSTICE, of PIETY, of VALOUR, are finely supported throughout the poem.*

1. I shall here mention one instance of the hero's justice, which has been less noticed than its singularity seems to deserve.

After Evander had entertained his guests, with a sublime simplicity, he lamented, that his age and want of power made him a very useless ally. However, he points out auxiliaries, and a cause worthy of a hero. The Etruscans, tired out with the repeated tyrannies of Mezentius, had driven that monarch from his throne, and reduced him to implore the protection of Turnus. Unsatisfied with freedom, the Etruscans called loudly for revenge; and in the poet's opinion, revenge was justice.

Ergo omnis furiis surrexit Etruria justis:

Regem ad Supplicium presenti Marte reposcunt.† Æneas, with the approbation of gods and men, accepts the command of these brave rebels, and punishes the tyrant with the death he so well deserved. The conduct of Æneas and the Etruscans may, in point of justice, seem doubtful to

M. de Voltaire condemns the latter part of the Eneid, as far inferior in fire and spirit to the former. As quoted in the Legation, he thinks that Virgil

s'épuise avec Didon et rate à la fin Lavinie;

a pretty odd quotation for a Bishop; but I most sincerely hope, that neither his lordship nor Mrs. W▬▬▬▬▬n are acquainted with the true meaning of the word rater.

Eneid, viii. 495.

many;.

many; the sentiments of the poet cannot appear equivocal to any one. Milton himself, I mean the Milton of the commonwealth, could not have asserted with more energy the daring pretensions of the people, to punish as well as to resist a tyrant. Such opinions, published by a writer whom we are taught to consider as the creature of Augustus, have a right to surprise us; yet they are strongly expressive of the temper of the times; the republic was subverted, but the minds of the Romans were still republican.

2. Eneas's piety has been more generally confessed than admired. St. Evremond laughs at it as unsuitable to his own temper. The Bishop of Gloucester defends it, as agreeable to his own system of the lawgiver's religion. The French wit was too superficial, the English scholar too profound, to attend to the plain narration of the Poet, and the peculiar circumstances of ancient heroes. WE believe from faith and reason: THEY believed from the report of their senses. Æneas had seen the Grecian divinities overturning the foundations of fated Troy. He was personally acquainted with his mother Venus, and with his persecutor Juno. Mercury, who commanded him to leave Carthage, was as present to his eyes as Dido, who strove to detain him. Such a knowledge of religion, founded on sense and experience, must insinuate itself into every instant of our lives, and determine every action. All this is, indeed, fiction; but it is fiction in which we choose to acquiesce, and which we justly consider as the charm of poetry. If we

allow,

allow, that Æneas lived in an intimate commerce with superior beings, we must likewise allow his love or his fear, his confidence or his gratitude, towards those beings, to display themselves on every proper occasion. Far from thinking Æneas ́too pious, I am sometimes surprised at his want of faith. Forgetful of the Fates, which had so often and so clearly pointed out the destined shores of Latium, he deliberates whether he shall not sit down quietly in the fields of Sicily. An apparition of his father is necessary to divert him from this impious and ungenerous design.

3. A hero's valour will not bear the rude breath of suspicion; yet has the courage of Æneas suffered from an unguarded expression of the Poet:

Extemplò Eneæ solvuntur frigore membra;

Ingemit.*

On every other occasion the Trojan chief is daring without rashness, and prudent without timidity. In that dreadful night, when Troy was delivered up to her hostile gods, he performed every duty of a soldier, a patriot, and a son.

Το

Moriamur, et in media arma ruamus.
Una salus victis, nullam sperare salutem.†

Iliaci cineres, et flamma extrema meorum,
Testor, in occasu vestro, nec tela, nec ullas
Vitavisse vices Dauaum; et, si fata fuissent
Ut caderem, meruisse manu.t

quote other proofs of the same nature would be to copy the six last books of the Eneid. I can

*Eneid, i. 96.

Idem, ii. 353.

Idem, ii. 431.

not,

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