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archetypal sun, and the sun the visible deity, the inward vital spirit in the centre of the universe, or that body to which that spirit is united, and by which it exerts itself most powerfully. Now it was the received hypothesis amongst the Pythagoreans, that the sun was situate in the centre of the world. Plato had it from them, and was himself of the same opinion, as appears by a passage in the Timaus; from which noble dialogue is this part of Virgil's poem taken.

Note IV.

Great Cato there, for gravity renowned, &c.---P. 421.

Quis te, magne Cato, &c.

There is no question but Virgil here means Cato Major, or the censor. But the name of Cato being also mentioned in the Eighth Æneid, I doubt whether he means the same man in both places. I have said in the preface, that our poet was of republican principles; and have given this for one reason of my opinion, that he praised Cato in that line,

Secretosque pios, his dantem jura Catonem➡

and accordingly placed him in the Elysian fields. Montaigne thinks this was Cato the Utican, the great enemy of arbitrary power, and a professed foe to Julius Cæsar. Ruæus would persuade us that Virgil meant the censor. But why should the poet name Cato twice, if he intended the same person? Our author is too frugal of his words and sense, to commit tautologies in either. His memory was not likely to betray him into such an error. Nevertheless I continue in the same opinion concerning the principles of our poet. He declares them sufficiently in this book, where he praises the first Brutus for expelling the Tarquins, giving liberty to Rome, and putting to death his own children, who conspired to restore tyranny. He calls him only an unhappy man, for being forced to that severe action--

Infelis! utcunque ferent ea facta minores,

Vincet amor patriæ, laudumque immensa cupido.

Let the reader weigh these two verses, and he must be convinced that I am in the right, and that I have not much injured my master in my translation of them.

Note V.

Embrace again, my sons! be foes no more;

Nor stain your country with her children's gore.
And thou, the first, lay down thy lawless claim,

Thou of my blood, who bear'st the Julian name.---P. 420. This note, which is out of its proper place, I deferred on purpose, to place it here, because it discovers the principles of our poet more plainly than any of the rest.

Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo:
Projice tela manu, sanguis meus!

Anchises here speaks to Julius Cæsar, and commands him first to lay down his arms; which is a plain condemnation of his cause. Yet observe our poet's incomparable address; for, though he shews himself sufficiently to be a commonwealth's man, yet, in respect to Augustus, who was his patron, he uses the authority of a parent, in the person of Anchises, who had more right to lay this injunction on Cæsar than on Pompey, because the latter was not of his blood. Thus our author cautiously veils his own opinion, and takes sanctuary under Anchises; as if that ghost would have laid the same command on Pompey also, had he been lineally descended from him. What could be more judiciously contrived, when this was the Eneid which he chose to read before his master?

Note VI.

A new Marcellus shall arise in thee.---P. 423.

In Virgil thus:

Tu Marcellus eris.

How unpoetically and badly had this been translated, Thou shalt Marcellus be! Yet some of my friends were of opinion, that I mistook the sense of Virgil in my translation. The French interpreter observes nothing on this place, but that it appears by it, the mourning of Octavia was yet fresh for the loss of her son Marcellus, whom she had by her first husband, and who died in the year ab urbe conditâ, 731; and collects from thence, that Virgil, reading this Æneid before her in the same year, had just finished it; that, from this time to that of the poet's death, was little more than four years; so that, supposing him to have written the whole Aneis in eleven years, the first six books must have taken up seven of those years; on which account, the six last must of necessity be less correct.

Now, for the false judgment of my friends, there is but this little to be said for them; the words of Virgil, in the verse preceding, are these,

-Siqua fata aspera rumpas

as if the poet had meant, "if you break through your hard destiny, so as to be born, you shall be called Marcellus:" but this cannot be the sense; for, though Marcellus was born, yet he broke not through those hard decrees, which doomed him to so immature a death. Much less can Virgil mean, 66 you shall be the same Marcellus by the transmigration of his soul:" for, according to the system of our author, a thousand years must be first elapsed, before the soul can return into a human body: but the first Marcellus was slain in the second Punic war; and how many hundred years were yet wanting to the accomplishing his penance, may with ease be gathered, by computing the time betwixt Scipio and Augustus. By which it is plain, that Virgil cannot mean the same Marcellus; but one of his descendants, whom I call a new Marcellus, who so much resembled his ancestor, perhaps in his features and his person, but certainly in his military virtues, that Virgil cries out, quantum instar in ipso est! which I have translated,

How like the former, and almost the same!

Note VII.

Two gates the silent house of Sleep adorn ;

Of polished ivory this, that of transparent horn.---P. 423.

Virgil borrowed this imagination from Homer, Odysses xix. line 562. The translation gives the reason, why true prophetic dreams are said to pass through the gate of horn, by adding the epithet transparent, which is not in Virgil, whose words are only these:

Sunt gemina Somni porte, quarum altera fertur
Cornea-

What is pervious to the sight is clear; and (alluding to this property) the poet infers such dreams are of divine revelation. Such as pass through the ivory gate, are of the contrary nature--polished lies. But there is a better reason to be given; for the ivory alludes to the teeth, the horn to the eyes. What we see

is more credible, than what we only hear; that is, words that pass through the portal of the mouth, or "hedge of the teeth;" which is Homer's expression for speaking.

ENEIS,

BOOK VII.

ARGUMENT.

King Latinus entertains Æneas, and promises him his only daughter, Lavinia, the heiress of his crown. Turnus, being in love with her, favoured by her mother, and stirred up by Juno and Alecto, breaks the treaty which was made, and engages in his quarrel Mezentius, Camilla, Messapus, and many other of the neighbouring princes; whose forces, and the names of their commanders, are particularly related,

AND thou, O matron of immortal fame!
Here dying, to the shore hast left thy name;
Caieta still the place is called from thee,
The nurse of great Æneas' infancy.

Here rest thy bones in rich Hesperia's plains;
Thy name ('tis all a ghost can have) remains.

Now, when the prince her funeral rites had paid, He ploughed the Tyrrhene seas with sails displayed.

From land a gentle breeze arose by night,
Serenely shone the stars, the moon was bright,
And the sea trembled with her silver light.
Now near the shelves of Circe's shores they run,
(Circe the rich, the daughter of the Sun,)

A dangerous coast!--The goddess wastes her days
In joyous songs; the rocks resound her lays.
In spinning, or the loom, she spends the night,
And cedar brands supply her father's light.
From hence were heard, rebellowing to the main,
The roars of lions that refuse the chain,

The grunts of bristled boars, and groans of bears,
And herds of howling wolves that stun the sailors' ears.
These from their caverns, at the close of night,
Fill the sad isle with horror and affright.

Darkling they mourn their fate, whom Circe's power,
(That watched the moon, and planetary hour,)
With words and wicked herbs, froin human kind
Had altered, and in brutal shapes confined.
Which monsters lest the Trojans' pious host
Should bear, or touch upon the enchanted coast,
Propitious Neptune steered their course by night,
With rising gales, that sped their happy flight.
Supplied with these, they skim the sounding shore,
And hear the swelling surges vainly roar.
Now, when the rosy morn began to rise,

And waved her saffron streamer through the skies,
When Thetis blushed in purple, not her own,
And from her face the breathing winds were blown,
A sudden silence sate upon the sea,

And sweeping oars, with struggling, urge their way.
The Trojan, from the main, beheld a wood,
Which thick with shades, and a brown horror, stood:
Betwixt the trees the Tyber took his course,
With whirlpools dimpled; and with downward force,
That drove the sand along, he took his way,
And rolled his yellow billows to the sea.

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