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 * See the Life of Virgil by Donatus, the Sixth Eclogue, and Second Georgic, v. 490. Lucian in Alexandro, p. 489. Cornel. Nepos, in Vit. Attici, c. 2, 3, 4. KK 2 very very defective; and yet by glancing our eye over the several periods of Virgil's life, we may perhaps attain a sort of probability, which ought to have some weight, since nothing can be thrown into the opposite scale. Although Virgil's father was hardly of a lower rank than Horace's, yet the peculiar character of the latter afforded his son a much superior education: Virgil did not enjoy the same opportunities of observing mankind on the great theatre of Rome, or of pursuing philosophy, in her favourite shades of the academy. Adjecêre bonæ paulò plus artis Athenæ: Scilicet ut possem curvo dignoscere rectum, The sphere of Virgil's education did not extend beyond Mantua, Cremona, Milan, and Naples.‡ After the accidents of civil war had introduced Virgil to the knowledge of the great, he passed a few years at Rome, in a state of dependance, the JUVENUM NOBILIUM CLIENS.§ It was during that The life of Virgil, attributed to Donatus, contains many characteristic particulars; but which are lost in confusion, and disgraced with a mixture of absurd stories, such as none but a monk of the darker ages could either invent or believe. I always considered them as the interpolations of some more recent writer; and am confirmed in that opinion by the life of Virgil, pure from those additions which Mr. Spence lately published, from a Florence MS. at the beginning of Mr. Holdsworth's valuable observations on Virgil. + Horat. L. II. Ep. ii. ver. 43. Donat. in Virgil. Horat. L. IV. Od. xii. time that he composed his Eclogues, the hasty productions of a muse capable of far greater things.* By the liberality of Augustus and his courtiers, Virgil soon became possessed of an affluent fortune.† He composed the Georgics and the Æneid in his elegant villas of Campania and Sicily; and seldom quitted those pleasing retreats even to come to Rome.‡ After he had finished the Æneid, he resolved on a journey into Greece and Asia, to employ three years in revising and perfecting that poem, and to devote the remainder of his life to the study of philosophy. He was at Athens, with Augustus, in the summer of A.U.C. 735; and whilst Augustus was at Athens, the Eleusinian mysteries were celebrated. It is not impossible, that Virgil might then be initiated, as well as the Indian philosopher;¶ but the Æneid could receive no improvement from his newly acquired knowledge. He was taken ill at Megara. The journey increased Donat, in Virgil. + Prope Centies Sestertium, about eighty thousand pounds. Donat. in Virgil. §Id. ibid. They always began the fifteenth of the Attic month Boedromion, and lasted nine days. Those who take the trouble of calculating the Athenian calendar, on the principles laid down by Mr. Dodwell (de Cyclis Antiquis) and by Dr. Halley, will find, that A.U.C. Varr. 735, the 15th of Boedromion coincided with the 24th of August of the Julian year. But if we may believe Dion Cassius, the celebration was this year anticipated, on account of Augustus and the Indian philosopher. L. LIV. p. 739. edit. Reimar. ¶ Strabo, L. xv. p. 720. KK 3 his his disorder, and he expired at Brundusium, the twenty-second of September of the same year 735.* Should it then appear probable, that Virgil had no opportunity of learning the SECRET of the mysteries, it will be something more than probable that he has not revealed what he never knew.. His Lordship will perhaps tell me, that Virgil might be initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries without making a journey to Athens: since those mysteries had been brought to Rome long before.† Here indeed I should be apt to suspect some mistake, or, at least, a want of precision in his Lordship's ideas; as Salmasius‡ and Casaubon.§ men tolerably versed in antiquity, assure me, that indeed some Grecian ceremonies of Ceres had been practised at Rome from the earliest ages; but that the mysteries of Eleusis were never introduced into that capital, either by the emperor Hadrian, or by any other: and I am the more induced to believe, that these rites were not imported in Virgil's time, as the accurate Suetonius speaks of an unsuccessful attempt for that purpose, made by the emperor Claudius, above threescore years after Virgil's death. II. None but the initiated COULD reveal the secret of the mysteries; and THE INITIATED COULD NOT REVEAL IT, WITHOUT VIOLATING THE LAWS, AS WELL OF HONOUR AS OF RELIGION. I sincerely acquit the Bishop of Gloucester of any design; yet so unfortunate is his system, that it represents a most virtuous and elegant poet, as equally devoid of taste, and of common honesty. His Lordship acknowledges, that the initiated were bound to secrecy by the most solemn obligations; that Virgil was conscious of the imputed impiety of his design; that at Athens he never durst have ventured on it; that even at Rome such a discovery was esteemed not only IMPICUS but INFAMOUS: and yet his Lordship maintains, that after the compliment of a formal apology, Sit mihi fas, audita loqui.† Virgil lays open the whole SECRET of the mysteries under the thin veil of an allegory, which could deceive none but the most careless readers.‡ An apology! an allegory! Such artifices might perhaps have saved him from the sentence of the Areopagus, had some zealous or interested priest denounced him to that court, as guilty of publishing A BLASPHEMOUS POEM. But the laws of honour are more rigid, and yet more liberal than those of civil tribunals. Sense, not words, is considered; and guilt is aggravated, not protected, by artful evasions. Virgil would still have incurred the severe censure of a contemporary, who was himself a man of very little religion. Vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum * D. L. vol. i. p. 147. + Idem, p. 240. KK 4 ↑ Idem, p. 277. Sit |