ried it fo far as to fuperinduce a multiplicity of fables, deftroy the unity of action, and lose their readers in an unreasonable length of time. Such was the revolution Virgil brought about in this nobleft region of poefy; an improvement fo great, that the trueft poet had need of all the affiftance the fublimeft genius could lend him; nothing less than the joint aid of the Iliad and Odyffes being able to furnish out the execution of his great idea: For a fyftem of politics delivered in the example of a great prince, muft fhew him in every public occurrence of life. Hence Eneas was, of neceffity, to be found voyaging with Ulyffes, and fighting with Achilles. But if the improved nature of his fubject compelled him to depart from that fimplicity in the fable, which Ariftotle, and his best interpreter, Boffu, find fo divine in Homer ; he gained confiderable advantages by it in other circumstances of the compofition: For now, thofe ornaments and decorations, for whofe infertion the critics could give no other reasons than to raise the dignity of the poem, become effential to the fubject. Thus the choice of princes and heroes for his perfonages, which were, before, only used to grace the scene, now conítitute the nature of the action : And the a Preface to the Iliad of Homer. Nous ne trouverons point, dans la fable de l'Eneide, cette fimplicité qu'Ariftote a trouvée fi divine dans Homére. Traité du poeme epique, l. i. c. 11. C Le retour (fays Bofju) d'un homme en fa maison, & la querelle de peux autres, n'ayant rien de grand en foi, deviennent des actions illuftres & importantes, lorfque dans le choix des noms, le poete dit que c'ft Ulyffe qui retourne en Ithaque, & que c'eft Achille & Agamemnon qui querellent. He goes on,-Mais il y a des actions qui d'elles mêmes B 2 font the machinery of the gods, and their intervention on every occafion, which was to create the marvellous, becomes, in this improvement, an indifpenfible part of the poem. A divine interpofition is in the very spirit of ancient legiflation, where, we fee, the principal care of the lawgiver was to poffefs the people with the full belief of a providence. This is the true reafon of fo much machinery in the Eneis; for which, modern critics accufe the author's judgment, who, in a poem written in the refined and enlightened age of Rome", followed the marvellous of Homer fo closely. But this key to the Æneis not only clears up a great many paffages obnoxious to the critics, but adds an infinite beauty to a vast number of incidents throughout the whole poem: Of which, take the following inftances: the one in religion, the other in civil policy. 1. Æneas, in the eighth book, goes to the court of Evander, in order to engage him in a confederacy againft the common enemy. He finds the king and his people, bufied in the celebration of an annual facrifice. The purpose of the voyage is difpatched in a few lines, and the whole episode is employed in a matter altogether foreign to it, that is to fay, the facrifice, the feast, and a long history of Hercules's adventure with Cacus. But it is done with great art and propriety, and in order to introduce font trés importantes, comme l'eftablissement, ou la ruine d'un etat, ou d'une religion. Telle est donc l'action de l'Æneide, 1. ii. c. 19. He faw here a remarkable difference in the fubjects it is ftrange this fhould not have led him to fee that the Eneis is of a different fpecies. Ce qui eft beau dans Homére pourroit avoir été mal recû dans les ouvrages d'un poëte du tems d'Auguste. Idem ib. 1. iii. c. 8. de l'admirable. into into this political poem that famous inftitute of Cicero in his Book of Laws, defigned to moderate the excess of labouring fuperftition, the ignota ceremonia, as he calls them, which at that time so much abounded in Rome-Divos & eos, qui cæleftes femper habiti, colunto, & ollos, QUOS ENDO COELO MERITA VOCAVERINT, HERCULEM, Liberum, Æfculapium, Caftorem, Pollucem, Quirinum- Thus copied by Virgil in the beginning of Evander's fpeech to Eneas. "Rex Evandrus ait: Non hæc folemnia nobis,... Has ex more dapes, hanc tanti numinis aram, VANA SUPERSTITIO, veterumque ignara liɔrm, Inpofuit. Sævis, hofpes Trojane, periclis Servati facimus, MERITOSQUE novamus honores. A leffon of great importance to the pagan lawgiver. This fuperftitio ignara veterum deorum was, as we have fhewn, a matter he took much care to rectify in the myfteries; not by deftroying that species of idolatry, the worship of dead men, which was indeed his own invention, but by fhewing why they paid that worship; namely for benefits done by thofe deified heroes to the whole race of mankind. "Quare agite, O Juvenes! tantarum in munere laudum, Cingite fronde comas, et pocula porgite dextris. "COMMUNEMQUE VOCATE DEUM, et date vina volentes, as evidently alludes to that other inftitute of Cicero, in the fame book of laws. SEPARATIM nemo habeffit Deos: neve novos neve advenas nifi publice adfcitos PRIVATIM colunto. Of which he gives the reafon in his Comment, fuofque Deos, aut novos aut alieni B 3 genas genas coli, confufionem habet religionum, & ignotas, ceremonias. Nor fhould we omit to obferve a further beauty in this epifode; and in imitation ftill of Cicero; who, in his book of laws hath taken the best of the Roman inftitutes for the foundation of his fyftem. For the worship of Hercules, as introduced by Evander, and adminiftred by the Potitii, on the altar called the ara maxima, was, as Dion. Hal. tells us, the oldest establishment in Rome; and continued for many ages in high veneration. To this, the following lines allude. "Hanc ARAM luco ftatuit, quæ MAXIMA femper Dicetur nobis, et erit quæ maxima femper. -Famque facerdotes, primufque POLITIUS ibant. 2. In the ninth book we have the fine episode of Nifus and Euryalus; which prefents us with many new graces, when confidered (as it ought to be) as a reprefentation of one of the moft famous and fingular of the Grecian inftitutions. CRETE, that ancient and celebrated fchool of legiflation, had a civil cuftom, which the Spartans firft, and afterwards all the principal cities of Greece borrowed from them, for every man of distinguished valour or wisdom to adopt a favourite youth; for whofe education he was answerable, and whofe manners he had the care of forming. Hence Nifus is faid. to be Hyrtacides; And Euryalus, ACERRIMUS ARMIS "COMES Euryalus, quo PULCHRIOR alter Non fuit Eneadum, Trojana neque induit arma; Ora PUER prima fignans INTONSA JUVENTA. The * The lovers (as they were called) and their youths always ferved and fought together;-fo Virgil of these : "His amor unus erat, pariterque in bella ruebant, Tum quoque communi portam ftatione tenebant. The lovers used to make prefents to their favourite youths. So Nifus tells his friend: "Si TIBI, que POSCO promittunt (nam mihi facti Fama fat eft) &c. The ftates of Greece, where this inftitution prevailed, reaped fo many advantages in it, that they gave it the greatest encouragement by their laws: fo that Cicero, in his book of a Republic, obferved, Opprobrio fuiffe adolefcentibus fi amatores non ha→ berent." Virgil has been equally intent to recom→ mend it by all the charms of poetry and eloquence. The amiable character, the affecting circumftance, the tendernefs of diftrefs, are all inimitably painted. The youth fo educated were found to be the best bulwark of their country, and most formidable to the enemies of civil liberty. On which account the tyrants, wherever they prevailed, ufed all their arts to fupprefs an inftitution fo oppofite to private intereft and ambition. The annals of ancient Greece afford many examples of the bravery of these bands, who chearfully attempted the most hazardous adventures: So that Virgil did but follow history when he put these two friends on one of the moft daring actions of the whole war; as old Aletes understood it : "Di patrii, quorum femper fub numine Troja eft Cum talis animos juvenum, tam certa tuliftis B 4 Fla |