the vast multitude of living spectators. Nor is it a mere fuppofition that fuch difcourfes made part of these representations. Ariftides exprefly fays, that in no place were more aftonishing words pronounced or fung, than in these mysteries: The reafon he tells us was, that the founds and fights might mutually aflift each other in making an impreffion on the minds of the initiated. But from a paffage in Pindar, I conclude, that in thefe fhews (from whence men take their ideas of the infernal regions) it was customary for each offender, as he palled by in machinery, to make an admonition against his own crime. "It is reported (fays Pindar) that Ixion, by the decrees of the gods, while he is inceffantly turning round his rapid wheel, calls out upon MORTALS to this effect, that they should be always ready at hand to repay a benefactor for the kindneffes he had done them " Where the word BFOTOI, living men, feems plainly to fhew, that the freech was firft made before men in this world. The poet clofes his catalogue of the damned with thefe words : 66 Aufi omnes immane nefas, AUSOQUE POTITI. For the ancients thought an action was fanctified by the fuccefs; which they esteemed a mark of the * Τίνὲ δ ̓ ἄλλῳ χωρίων, ἢ μύθων φημοι θαυμασίε τα εξύμνησαν, ἢ τα δρώμενα μείζω ἔσχε τὴν ἔκπλη ξιν ἢ μᾶλλον εἰς ἐφάμιλλον κατέςη ταῖς ακομῖς τὰ δρώμενα. Eleufinia h Η Θεῶν δ ̓ ἐφετμαῖσιν Βροτοῖς λέγειν. ἐν πτερόεντι τροχῷ Παιζα κυλινδόμενον, Τὸν εὐεργέταν αγανῶς ἀμοιβαῖς Εποιχομένος τι έπαι 2 Pyth. favour favour and approbation of heaven. As this was a very pernicious opinion, it was neceffary to teach that the imperial villain who trampled on his country, and the baffled plotter who expired on a gibbet, were equally the objects of divine vengeance. Æneas has now paffed through Tartarus. And here end the LESSER MYSTERIES. Their original explains why these fort of fhews were exhibited in them. We are told they were instituted for the fake of Hercules, when about to perform his eleventh labour, of fetching Cerberus from hell *; and were under the prefidency of Proferpine'. The hero advances to the borders of ELYSIUM ; and here he undergoes the lustration: "Occupat Eneas aditum, corpufque recenti Spargit aquâ, ramumque adverfo in limine figit. Being now about to undergo the luftrations (fays Sopater) which immediately precede initiation into the greater myfteries, they called me happy TM. Accordingly Æneas now enters on the GREATFR MYSTERIES, and comes to the abodes of the bleffed: "Devenere locos lætos, & amœna vireta Fortunatorum nemorum, fedefque beatas : Largior hic campos æther, & lumine veflit Purpureo folemque fuum, fua fidera norunt. These two so different fcenes explain what Ariftides meant, when he called the fhews of the Eleufinian iSee the Div. Leg. * Εμνήθη ἐν Ἐλευσῖνι τὰ δὶ αὐτον [Ηρακλέα] λeyoueva MIKPA μushela. Tzetz. in Lycoph. i Tà♪i pineg Пepσeqovns. Schol. Ariftoph. ad Plut. fecund. m Μέλλων δὲ τοῖς καθαρσίοις τοῖς πρὸ τῆς τελετῆς ἐντυχάνειν, ἐκάλον εὐδαίμονα ἐμαυτόν. In Divi. Qua VOL. III. D myf myfteries, "that most shocking, and, at the fame time, moft ravishing reprefentation ". The initiated, who till now only bore the name of Músa, are called 'Eix; and this new vifion, "Aulofía. The Aulofia, or the feeing with their own eyes (fays Pfellus) is when he who is initiated beholds the divine lights. In thefe very circumstances Themiftius defcribes the initiated when juft entered upon this scene. "It being thoroughly purified, he now discloses to the initiated, a region all over illuminated, and fhining with a divine fplendor. The cloud and thick darkness are difperfed; and the mind emerges, as it were, into day, full of light and chearfulnefs, as before, of difconfolate obfcurity P." Let me obferve, that the lines "Largior hic campos æther et lumine veftit Purpureo SOLEMQUE fuum fua fidera norunt are in the very language of thofe who profefs to tell us, what they faw at their initiation into the greater myfleries. "Necte media vidi SOLEM candido corufcantem lumine," fays Apuleius on that occafion. Here Virgil, by leaving his mafter, and copying the amiable paintings of Elyfium, as they were reprefented in the mysteries, hath artfully avoided a fault too juftly objected to Homer, of giving fo dark and joyless a landscape of the fortunata nemora, as could raife to delive or appetite for them: * Τουτὸν φρικωδέςατόν τε καὶ φαιδρλατον. Eleu Αὐτόψια ἐςὶν ὅταν αὐτὸς ὁ τελόμενα τα θεία Qutaipa. In Schol. in Orac. Zeroat. Orat. in Patrem. Hia His favourite hero himfelf, who poffeffed them, telling Ulyffes that he had rather be a day-labourer above, than command in the regions of the dead : Such a reprefentation defeats the very intent of the lawgiver in propagating the doctrine of a future state. Nay, to mortify every excitement to noble actions, the Greek poet makes reputation, fame, and glory, the great fpurs to virtue in the Pagan fyftem, to be vifionary and impertinent. On the contrary, Virgil, whofe aim, in this poem, was the good of fociety, makes the love of glory fo ftrong a paffion in the other world, that the fibyl's promife to Palinurus, that his NAME fhould be only affixed to a promontory, rejoices his shade even in the regions of the unhappy. "Eternumque locus Palinuri nomen habebit: His dictis cura emotæ, pulfufque parumper Corde dolor trifti: gaudet cognomine terra. It was this ungracious defcription of Elyfium, and the licentious ftories of the gods, (both fo pernicious to fociety) that made Plato banish Homer out of his republic. But, to return: The poet having described the climate of the happy regions, fpeaks next of the amufements of its inhabitants: "Pars in gramineis exercent membra palæftris ; Contendunt ludo, et fulva luctantur arena. Befides, the obvious allufion in thefe lines to the philofophy of Plato, concerning the duration of the paffions, which our great countryman has fo humourously parodied, ("Her joy in gilded chariots, when alive, And love of ombre, after death furvive) it seems to have a more fecret one, to what he had all the way in his eye, the Eleufinian myfteries: whose celebration was accompanied with the Gre cian GAMES 9. On which account too, perhaps it was, that, in the difpofition of his work, the fifth book is employed in the games, as a prelude to the descent in the fixth. 1. The first place, in these happy regions, is given to the LAWGIVERS, and those who brought mankind from a state of nature into fociety: Magnanimi Heroës, nati melioribus annis. At the head of thefe is Orpheus, the most renowned of the European lawgivers; but better known under the character of poet: for the firft laws being written in measure to allure men to learn them, and when learnt, to retain them, the fable would have it, that by the force of harmony, Orpheus foftened the favage inhabitants of Thrace: "Threicius longâ cum vefte facerdos Obloquitur numeris feptem difcrimina vocum. But he has the first place, because he was not only a legiflator, but the bringer of the myfteries into that part of Europe. 2. The next is allotted to PATRIOTS, and those who died for the fervice of their country: "Hic manus, ob patriam pugnando vulnera paffi. 3. The third to virtuous and pious PRIESTS: Quique facerdotes cafti, dum vita manebat ; For it was of principal ufe to fociety, that religious men fhould lead holy lives; and that they should Ariftides Panath, & Eleufin. teach |