NOTES ON ANEÏS, BOOK VII. Note I. Strange to relate! the flames, involved in smoke, &c.---P. 432. Virgil, in this place, takes notice of a great secret in the Roman divination the lambent fires, which rose above the head, or played about it, were signs of prosperity; such were those which he observed in the second Æneïd, which were seen mounting from the crown of Ascanius-- Ecce, levis summo de vertice visus Iüli Fundere lumen apex. Smoky flames (or involved in smoke) were of a mixed omen: such were those which are here described; for smoke signifies tears, because it produces them, and flames happiness. And therefore Virgil says, that this ostent was not only mirabile visu, but horrendum. Note II. Only one daughter heirs my crown and state. --P. 439. This has seemed to some an odd passage; that a king should offer his daughter and heir to a stranger prince, and a wanderer, before he had seen him, and when he had only heard of his arrival on his coasts. But these critics have not well considered the simplicity of former times, when the heroines almost courted the marriage of illustrious men. Yet Virgil here observes the rule of de cency: Lavinia offers not herself; it is Latinus, who propounds the match; and he had been foretold, both by an augur and an oracle, that he should have a foreign son-in-law, who was also a hero ;---fathers, in those ancient ages, considering birth and virtue, more than fortune, in the placing of their daughters; which I could prove by various examples; the contrary of which being now practised, I dare not say in our nation, but in France, has not a little darkened the lustre of their nobility. That Lavinia was averse to this marriage, and for what reason, I shall prove in its proper place. Note III. ·And where Abella sees, From her high towers, the harvest of her trees.---P. 458. I observe that Virgil names not Nola, which was not far distant from Abella; perhaps, because that city (the same in which Augustus died afterwards) had once refused to give him entertainment, if we may believe the author of his life. Homer heartily curses another city which had used him in the same manner; but our author thought his silence of the Nolans a sufficient correction. When a poet passes by a place or person, though a fair occasion offers of remembering them, it is a sign he is, or thinks himself, much disobliged, END OF THE FOURTEENTH VOLUME, EDINBURGH, Printed by James Ballantyne & Co. |