CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE SIXTH BOOK OF THE AENEID.
As the reasonable De La Bruyere observes, "
Qui ne sait étre un
ERASME,
doit penser à étre un
EVEQUE."
POPE'S WORKS, vol. IV. p. 321. with the Commentaries and Notes of Mr. WARBURTON.
LONDON: ORIGINALLY PRINTED 1770. REPRINTED 1794.
..... a most clear, elegant, and decisive Work of Criticism, which could not, indeed, derive Authority from the greatest Name, but to which the
This Book is ascribed, and I think with great Probability, to the very learned and ingenious Author, to whom the Public is indebted for the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Be the Writer who he will, the Reader will say with me, that the Work is,
.
Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, Page
192.
greatest Name might, with Propriety, have been affixed.
CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE DESIGN OF THE SIXTH Book of the AENEID.
THE Allegorical Interpretation which the Bishop of Glocester has given of the Sixth Book of the Aeneid, seems to have been very favourably received by the Public. Many writers, both at home and abroad, have mentioned it with approbation, or at least with esteem; and I have more than once heard it alledged, in the conversation of scholars, as an ingenious improvement on the plain and obvious sense of Virgil. As such, it is not undeserving of the notice of a candid critic; nor can the enquiry be void of entertainment, whilst Virgil is our constant theme. Whatever may be the fortune of the chace, we are sure it will lead us through pleasant prospects and a fine country.
That I may escape the imputation as well as the danger of misrepresenting his Lordship's Hypothesis, I shall expose it in his own words.
The purpose of this Discourse is to shew that Aeneas's adventure to the INFERNAL SHADES, is no other than a figurative description of his INITIATION INTO THE MYSTERIES; and particularly a very exact one of the SPECTACLES of the ELEUSINIAN
See Warburton's Dissertation, &c. in the third volume of Mr. Warton's Virgil. I shall quote indifferently that Dissertation or the Divine Legation itself.
.
This general notion is supported with singular ingenuity, dressed up with an easy yet pompous display of Learning, and delivered in a style much fitter for the Hierophant of Eleusis, than for a Modern Critic, who is observing a remote object through the medium of a glimmering and doubtful light:
Ibant obscuri, solâ sub nocte, per umbram.
His Lordship naturally enough pursues two different methods which unite, as he apprehends, in the same conclusion. From general principles peculiar to himself, he infers the propriety and even necessity of such a Description of the Mysteries; and from a comparison of particular circumstances he labours to prove that Virgil has actually introduced it into the Aeneid. Each of these methods shall be considered separately.
As the learned Prelate's Opinions branch themselves out into luxuriant Systems, it is not easy to resume them in a few words. I shall, however, attempt to give a short idea of those general principles, which occupy, I know not how, so great a share of the
Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated.
The whole System of Paganism, of which the Mysteries were an essential part, was instituted by the Antient Lawgivers for the support and benefit of Society. The mysteries themselves were a School of Morality and Religion, in which the vanity of Polytheism
At least of the vulgar polytheism, by revealing that the
Dii Majorum Gentium
had been mere mortals.
, and the Unity of the First Cause, were revealed to the Initiated. Virgil, who intended his immortal Poem for a Republic in action, as those of Plato and Tully were in precept, could not avoid displaying this first and noblest art of Government. His perfect Law-giver must be initiated, as the antient Founders of States had been before him; and as Augustus himself was many ages afterwards.
What a crowd of natural reflections must occur to an unblassed mind! Was the civil magistrate the mover of the whole machine; the sole contriver, or at least the sole support of Religion? Were antient laws ALWAYS designed for the benefit of the people, and NEVER for the private interest of the Lawgiver? Could the first fathers of rude societies instruct their newmade subjects in philosophy as well as in agriculture? Did they all agree, in Britain as in Egypt, in Persia as in Greece, to found these secret schools on the same common principle; which subsisted near eighteen hundred years at Eleusis
From their institution, 1399 years before the Christian aera (Marm. Arundel. Ep. 14), till their suppression, towards the end of the fourth century.
in its primaeval purity? Can these things be? Yes, replies the learned prelate; they are:
Egypt was the mysterious mother of Religion and Policy; and the arts of Egypt were diffused with her colonies over the antient World. Inachus carried the Mysteries into Greece, Zoroaster into Persia
Though I hate to be positive, yet I would almost venture to affirm, that Zorcaster's connection with Egypt is no where to be found, except in the
D. L.
&c. &c.
—I retire from so wide a field, in which it would be easy for me to lose both myself and my adversary. THE ANTIENT WORLD, EIGHTEEN CENTURIES, and FOUR HUNDRED AUTHORS GENUINE AND APOCRYPHAL
See a list of four hundred Authors, quoted, &c. in the
D. L.
from St. Austin and Aristotle, down to Scarron and Rabelais. Amongst these authors we may observe Sanchoniatho, Orpheus, Zaleucus, Charondas, the Oracles of Prophry, and the History of Jeffrey of Monmouth.
The bishop has entered the lists with the tremendous Bentley, who treated the laws of Zaleucus and Charondas as the forgeries of a sophist. A whole section of mistakes or misrepresentations is devoted to this controversy: But Bentley is no more, and W
n may sleep in peace.
I shall, however, disturb his repose, by asking him on what authority he supposes that the old language of the Twelve Tables was altered for the conveniency of succeeding ages. The fragments of those laws, collected by Lipsius, Sylburgius, &c. bear the stamp of the most remote antiquity. Lipsius himself (tom. i. p. 206.) was highly delighted with those
Antiquissima Verba:
But what is much more decisive, Horace (L. II. Ep. i. Ver. 23), Seneca (Epistol. 114), and Aulus Gellius (XX. 1), rank those laws amongst the oldest remains of the Latin tongue. Their obsolete language was admired by the lawyers, ridiculed by the wits, and pleaded by the friends of antiquity as an excuse for the frequent obscurities of that code.
Had an adversary to the
Divine Legation
been guilty of this mistake, I am afraid it would have been styled an
egregious blunder.
would, under tolerable management, furnish some volumes of controversy; and since I have perused the two thousand and fourteen pages of the unfinished
Legation,
I have less inclination than ever to spin out volumes of laborious trifles.
I shall, however, venture to point out a fact, not very agreeable to the favourite notion, that Paganism was entirely the Religion of the magistrate. The Oracles were not less antient, nor less venerable than the Mysteries. Every difficulty, religious or civil, was submitted to the decision of those infallible tribunals. During several ages no war could be undertaken, no colony founded, without the sanction of the Delphic Oracle; the first and most celebrated amongst several hundred others
See Vandale de Oraculis, p. 559. That valuable book contains whatever can now be known of Oracles. I have borrowed his facts; and could with great ease have borrowed his quotations.
. Here then we might expect to perceive the directing hand of the magistrate. Yet when we study their history with attention, instead of the Alliance between Church and State, we can only discover the antient Alliance between the Avarice of the Priest and the Credulity of the People.
For my own part, I am very apt to consider the Mysteries in the same light as the Oracles. An intimate connection subsisted between them
The prophet Alexander, whose arts are so admirably laid open by Lucian, instituted his Oracle and his Mysteries as regular parts of the same plan. It is here we may say, with the learned Catholic,
Les nouveaux Saints me font douter des Anciens.
: Both were preceded and accompanied with fasts, sacrifices, and lustrations; with mystic sights and preternatural sounds: But the most essential preparation for the ASPIRANT, was a general confession of his past life, which was exacted of him by the Priest. In return for this implicit confidence, the Hierophant conferred on the Initiated a sacred character; and promised them a peculiar place of happiness in the Elysian fields, whilst the souls of the Profane (however virtuous they had been) were wallowing in the mire
See Diogen. Laert. vi. 39. & Menag. ad loc.
. Nor did the Priests of the Mysteries neglect to recommend to the brethren a spirit of friendship, and the love of virtue; so pleasing even to the most corrupt minds, and so requisite to render any society respectable in its own eyes. Of all these religious societies, that of Eleusis was the most illustrious. From being peculiar to the inhabitants of Attica, it became at last common to the whole Pagan world. Indeed, I should suspect that it was much indebted to the genius of the Athenian writers, who bestowed fame and dignity on whatever had the least connection with their country; nor am I surprised that Cicero and Atticus, who were both initiated, should express themselves with enthusiasm, when they speak of the sacred rites of their beloved Athens.
But our curiosity is yet unsatisfied; we would press forwards into the sanctuary; and are eager to learn, WHAT was the SECRET which was revealed to the Initiated, and to them alone. Many of the Profane, possessed of leisure and ingenuity, haved tried to guess, what has been so religiously concealed. The SECRET of each is curious and philosophical; for as soon as we attempt this Enquiry, the honour of the Mysteries becomes our own
I shall sum them up in a curious passage of the celebrated Freret.
Les sectes philosophiques cherchoient à diviner le Dogme caché sous le voile des Ceremonies; & tachoient de le ramener chacune à leur doctrine. Dans l'hypothése des Epicuriens, adoptée de nos jours par M. M. Leclerc & Warburton,
(Leclerc
adopted
it in the year 1687; Mr. Warburton
invented
it in the year 1738)
tout ce qu'on révéloit aux adeptes après tant de préparatifs & d'épreuves, c'est que les Dieux adorés du Vulgaire, avoient été des hommes, &c. Les Stoiciens & les Hylozoistes supposoient qu'on enseignoit aux Initiés, qu'il n'y avoit d'autres Dieux que les élémens & les parties de l'univers materiel. Enfin suivant les nouveaux Platoniciens, ces Symboles servoient à couvrir les dogmes d'une Théologie & d'une Philosophie sublimes, enseignées autrefois par les Egyptiens & les Chaldéens.
Mr. Freret inclines, though with great diffidence, to the last opinion.
Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, &c. tom.
xxi.
p.
12.
Hist.
. I too could frame an hypothesis, as plausible perhaps, and as uncertain as any of theirs, did I not feel myself checked by the apprehension of discovering what never existed
Je ne suis pas si convaincu de nôtre ignorance par les choses qui sont, & dont la raison nous est inconnuë; que par celles qui ne sont point & dont nous trouvons la raison.
Oeuvres de Fontenelle, tom.
xi.
p.
229.
. I admire the discretion of the Initiated; but the best security for discretion is, the vanity of concealing that we have nothing to reveal.
The examples of great men, when they cannot serve as models, may serve as warnings to us. I should be very sorry to have discovered, that an ATHEISTICAL HISTORY
The Fragment of Sanchoniatho's Phoenician History.
Eusebius and bishop Cumberland have already observed, that the formation of the world is there attributed to the blind powers of Matter, without the least mention of an Intelligent Cause.
was used in the celebration of the Mysteries, to prove the Unity of the First Cause, and that an ANTIENT HYMN
Orpheus's Hymn to Musaeus,
quoted by Justin Martyr, and several other Fathers, but rejected as spurious by Cudworth (Intellectual System, p. 300), by Leclerc (Hist. Eccl. p. 692), and by Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical Hist. vol. 1. p. 199). The first of these, the
immortal Cudworth,
is often celebrated by the Bishop of Gloucester; Leclerc's literary character is established; and with respect to Dr. Jortin, I will venture to call him a learned and moderate Critic. The few who may not chuse to confess, that their objections are unanswerable, will allow that they deserved to be answered.
was sung, for the edification of the devout Athenians, which was most probably A MODERN FORGERY of some Jewish or Christian Impostor. Had I delivered THESE TWO DISCOVERIES, with an air of Confidence and Triumph, I should be still more mortified.
After all, as I am not apt to give the name of Demonstration to what is mere conjecture, his Lordship may take advantage of my Scepticism, and still affirm, that his favourite Mysteries were Schools of Theism, instituted by the Lawgiver. Yet unless Aeneas is the Lawgiver of Virgil's Republic, he has no more business with the Mysteries of Athens, than with the laws of Sparta. We will, therefore, reflect a moment on the true nature and plan of the Aeneid.
An Epic Fable must be important as well as interesting: Great actions, great virtues, and great distresses, are the peculiar province of Heroic Poetry. This rule seems to have been dictated by nature and experience, and is very different from those chains in which Genius has been bound by artificial Criticism. The importance I speak of, is not indeed always dependant on the rank or names of the Personages. Columbus, exploring a new world with three sloops and ninety sailors, is a Hero worthy of the Epic Muse; yet our imagination would be much more strongly affected by the image of a virtuous Prince saved from the ruins of his country, and conducting his faithful followers through unknown seas and through hostile lands. Such is the Hero of the Aeneid. But his peculiar situation suggested other beauties to the Poet, who had an opportunity of adorning his subject with whatever was most pleasing in Grecian fable, or most illustrious in Roman history. Aeneas had fought under the walls of Ilium; and conducted to the Banks of the Tyber a Colony from which Rome claimed her origin.
The character of the Hero is expressed by one of his friends in a few words; and, tho' drawn by a friend, does not seem to be flattered:
Rex erat Aeneas nobis; quo justior alter,
Nec pietate fecit, nec bello major & armis
Aeneid, i. 548.
.
These three virtues, of JUSTICE, of PIETY, and of VALOR, are finely supported throughout the Poem
M. de Voltaire condemns the latter part of the Aeneid, as far inferior in fire and spirit to the former. As quoted in the
Legation,
he thinks that Virgil
—s'épuise avec Didon &
rate
à la fin Lavinie;
a pretty odd quotation for a Bishop; but I most sincerely hope, that neither his Lordship nor Mrs. W
n are acquainted with the true meaning of the word
Rater.
.
1. I shall here mention one instance of the Hero's justice, which has been less noticed than its singularity seems to deserve.
After Evander had entertained his Guests, with a sublime simplicity, he lamented, that his age and want of power made him a very useless Ally. However, he points out auxiliaries and a cause worthy of a Hero. The Etruscans, tired out with the repeated tyrannies of Mezentius, had driven that monarch from his throne, and reduced him to implore the protection of Turnus. Unsatisfied with freedom, the Etruscans called loudly for revenge; and, in the Poet's opinion, revenge was justice.
Ergo omnis
furiis
surrexit Etruria
justis
:
Regem
ad
supplicum
praesenti Marte reposcunt
Aeneid, viii. 495.
.
Aeneas, with the approbation of Gods and men, accepts the command of these brave rebels, and punishes the Tyrant with the death he so well deserved. The conduct of Aeneas and the Etruscans may, in point of justice, seem doubtful to many; the sentiments of the Poet cannot appear equivocal to any one. Milton himself, I mean the Milton of the Commonwealth, could not have asserted with more energy the daring pretensions of the people, to punish as well as to resist a Tyrant. Such opinions, published by a writer, whom we are taught to consider as the creature of Augustus, have a right to surprize us; yet they are strongly expressive of the temper of the times; the Republic was subverted, but the minds of the Romans were still Republican.
2. Aeneas's piety has been more generally confessed than admired. St. Evremond laughs at it, as unsuitable to his own temper. The Bishop of Gloucester defends it, as agreeable to his own System of the Lawgiver's Religion. The French wit was too superficial, the English scholar too profound, to attend to the plain narration of the Poet, and the peculiar circumstances of antient Heroes. WE believe from faith and reason: THEY believed from the report of their senses. Aeneas had seen the Grecian Divinities overturning the foundations of fated Troy. He was personally acquainted with his mother Venus, and with his persecutor Juno. Mercury, who commanded him to leave Carthage, was as present to his eyes as Dido, who strove to detain him. Such a knowledge of Religion, founded on sense and experience, must insinuate itself into every instant of our lives, and determine every action. All this is, indeed, fiction; but it is fiction in which we chuse to acquiesce, and which we justly consider as the charm of Poetry. If we allow, that Aeneas lived in an intimate commerce with superior Beings, we must likewise allow, his love or his fear, his confidence or his gratitude, towards those Beings, to display themselves on every proper occasion. Far from thinking Aeneas too pious, I am sometimes surprized at his want of faith. Forgetful of the Fates, which had so often and so clearly pointed out the destined shores of Latium, he deliberates, whether he shall not sit down quietly in the fields of Sicily. An apparition of his father is necessary to divert him from this impious and ungenerous design.
3. A Hero's valor will not bear the rude breath of suspicion; yet has the courage of Aeneas suffered from an unguarded expression of the Poet:
Extemplo Aeneae solvuntur frigore membra
Ingemit
Aeneid. i. 96.
.
On every other occasion, the Trojan chief is daring without rashness, and prudent without timidity. In that dreadful night, when Troy was delivered up to her hostile Gods, he performed every duty of a Soldier, a Patriot, and a Son.
Moriamur & in media arma ruamus.
Una salus victis, nullam sperare salutem
Aeneid, ii. 353.
.
Iliaci cineres, & flamma extrema meorum,
Testor, in occasu vestro, nec tela, nec ullas
Vitavisse vices Danaûm; &, si fata fuissent
Ut caderem, meruisse manu
Idem, ii. 431.
.
To quote other proofs of the same nature, would be to copy the six last books of the Aeneid. I cannot, however, forbear mentioning the calm and superior intrepidity of the Hero, when, after the perfidy of the Rutuli, and his wound, he rushed again to the field, and restored Victory by his presence alone.
Ipse neque aversos dignatur sternere morti;
Nec pede congressos aequo, nec tela ferentes
Insequitur: solum densa in caligine Turnum
Vestigat lustrans, solum in certamina poscit
Idem, xii. 464.
.
At length, indignant that his victim has escaped him, his contempt gives way to fury:
Jam tandem invadit medios, & Marte secundo
Terribilis, saevam nullo discrimine caedem
Suscitat, irarumque omnes effundit habenas
Idem, xii. 497.
.
The Heroic character of Aeneas has been understood and admired by every attentive reader. But to discover the LAWGIVER in Aeneas, and A SYSTEM OF POLITICS in the Aeneid, required the CRITICAL TELESCOPE
Others are furnished by Criticism with a
Telescope.
They see with great clearness whatever is too remote to be discovered by the rest of mankind; but are totally blind to all that lies immediately before them. They discover in every passage some secret meaning, some remote allusion, some artful allegory, or some occult imitation, which no other reader ever suspected: But they have no perception of the cogency of arguments, the contexture of narration, the various colours of diction, or the flowery embellishments of fancy. Of all that engages the attention of others they are totally insensible; while they pry into the worlds of conjecture, and amuse themselves with phantoms in the clouds.
Rambler.
of the great W
n. The naked eye of common sense cannot reach so far. I revolve in my memory the harmonious sense of Virgil: Virgil seems as ignorant as myself of his political character. I return to the less pleasing pages of the
Legation:
So far from condescending to proofs, the Author of the
Legation
is even sparing of conjectures.
Many political instructions may be drawn from the Aeneid.
And from what book which treats of MAN, and the adventures of human life, may they not be drawn? His Lordship's Chymistry (did his Hypothesis require it) would extract a SYSTEM OF POLICY from the ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS.
A System of Policy delivered in the example of a great prince, must shew him in every public occurrence of life. Hence, Aeneas was of necessity to be found voyaging, with Ulysses, and fighting, with Achilles
D. L. vol. I. p. 212.
.
There is another public occurrence, at least as much in the character of a LAWGIVER, as either voyaging or fighting; I mean, GIVING LAWS. Except in a single line
Aeneid, iii. 137.
, Aeneas never appears in that occupation. In Sicily, he compliments Acestes with the honour of giving laws to the colony, which he himself had founded.
Interea Aeneas urbem designat aratro,
Sortiturque domos: hoc, Ilium, & haec loca, Trojae
Esse jubet; gaudet regno Trojanus Acestes,
Indicitque forum, & patribus dat jura vocatis
Idem, v. 755.
.
In the solemn treaty, which is to fix the fate of his posterity, he disclaims any design of innovating the laws of Latium. On the contrary, he only demands a hospitable seat for his Gods and his Trojans; and professes to leave the whole authority to king Latinus.
Non ego, nec Teucris Italos parere jubebo,
Nec mihi regna peto: paribus se legibus ambae
Invictae gentes aeterna in foedera mittant.
Sacra Deosque dabo: socer arma Latinus habeto,
Imperium solemne socer: mihi moenia Teucri
Constituent, urbique dabit Lavinia nomen
Aeneid, xii. 189.
.
But after all, is not the fable of the Aeneid the establishment of an empire?
Yes, in one sense, I grant it is. Aeneas had many external difficulties to struggle with. When the Latins were defeated, Turnus slain, and Juno appeased, these difficulties were removed. The Hero's labor was over, the Lawgiver's commenced from that moment; and, as if Virgil had a design against the Bishop's System, at that very moment the Aeneid ends. Virgil, who corrected with judgment, and felt with enthusiasm, thought perhaps, that the sober arts of peace could never interest a reader, whose mind had been so long agitated with scenes of distress and slaughter. He might perhaps say, like the Sylla of Montesquieu,
J'aime à remporter des victoires, à fonder ou détruire des états, à faire des ligues, à punir un usurpateur; mais, pour ces minces détails de governement, où les Génies médiocres ont tant d'avantages, cette lente exécution des loix, cette discipline d'une milice tranquille, mon ame ne sçauroit s'en occuper
Oeuvres de Montesquieu, tom. iii. p. 555.
.
Had Virgil designed to compose a POLITICAL INSTITUTE, the Example of Fenelon, his elegant Imitator, may give us some notion of the manner in which he would have proceeded. The preceptor of the Duke of Burgundy professedly designed to educate a prince for the happiness of the people. Every incident in his pleasing Romance is subservient to that great end. The Goddess of Wisdom, in a human shape, conducts her pupil thro' a varied series of instructive adventures; and every adventure is a lesson or a warning for Telemachus. The pride of Sesostris, the tyranny of Pygmalion, the perfidy of Adrastus, and the imprudence of Idomeneus, are displayed in their true light. The innocence of the inhabitants of Boetica, the commerce of Tyre, and the wise laws of Crete and Salentum, instructed the prince of the various means by which a people may be made happy. From the Telemachus of Fenelon, I could pass with pleasure to the Cyropoedia of Xenophon. But I should be led too far from my subject, were I to attempt to lay open the true nature and design of that philosophical history. We must return from Fenelon and Xenophon to the Bishop of Glocester.
His Lordship props the legislative character of Aeneas with an additional support:
Augustus, who was shadowed in the person of Aeneas, was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries
D. L. p. 228.
.
Ergo, &c.
This doctrine of types and shadows, though true in general, has on this, as well as on graver occasions, produced a great abuse of reason, or at least of reasoning. To confine myself to Virgil, I shall only say, that he was too judicious to compliment the Emperor, at the expence of good sense and probability. Every age has its manners; and the poet must suit his Hero to the Age, and not the Age to his Hero. It is easy to give instances of this truth. Marc Antony, when defeated and besieged in Alexandria, challenged his competitor to decide their quarrel by a single combat. This was rejected by Augustus with contempt and derision, as the last effort of a desperate man
Plutarch, in Vit. M. Anton. tom. i. 950. Edit. Wechel.
; and the world applauded the prudence of Augustus, who preferred the part of a General to that of a Gladiator. The temper and good sense of Virgil must have made him view things in the same light; yet, when Virgil introduces Aeneas in similar circumstances, he gives him a quite different conduct. The Hero wishes to spare the innocent people, provokes Turnus to a single combat, and, even after the perfidy and last defeat of the Rutuli, is still ready to risk his person and victory, against the unhappy life and desperate fortunes of his Rival. The laws of Honor are different in different Ages; and a behaviour which in Augustus was decent, would have covered Aeneas with infamy.
We may apply this observation to the very case of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Augustus was initiated into them, at a time when Eleusis was become the COMMON TEMPLE OF THE UNIVERSE. The Trojan Hero could not with the smallest propriety set him that example; as the Trojan Hero lived in an age when those rites were confined to the natives of Greece, and even of Attica
Plutarch, in Vit. Thesei, tom. i. p. 16. Herodot. viii. 65. Cicero de Nat. Deor. i. 42. The gradation of Athenians, Greeks, and mankind at large, may be traced in these passages.
.
I have now wandered through the scientific maze in which the Bishop of Gloucester has concealed his first and general argument. It appears (when resumed) to amount to this irrefragable demonstration,
THAT IF THE MYSTERIES WERE INSTITUTED BY LEGISLATORS (which they probably were not) AENEAS (who was no Legislator) MUST OF COURSE BE INITIATED INTO THEM BY THE POET.
And here I shall mention a collateral reason assigned by his Lordship, which might engage Virgil to introduce a description of the Mysteries: the PRACTICE OF OTHER POETS. This proof is so exceedingly brittle, that I fear to handle it; and shall report it faithfully in the words of our ingenious Critic
D. L. vol. I. p. 233.
.
Had the old Poem under the name of Orpheus been now extant, it would perhaps have shewn us, that no more was meant than Orpheus's Initiation; and that the hint of this Sixth Book was taken from thence.
As nothing now remains of that old Poem, except the title, it is not altogether so easy to guess what it would or would not have shewn us.
But farther, it was customary for the poets of the Augustan age to exercise themselves on the subject of the Mysteries, as appears from Cicero, who desires Atticus, then at Athens, and initiated, to send to Chilius, a poet of eminence, an account of the Eleusinian Mysteries; in order, as it would seem, to insert them into some poem he was then writing.
The Eleusinian Mysteries are not mentioned in the original Passage. Cicero using the obscure brevity of familiar Letters, desires that Atticus would send their friend Chilius, ΕΥΜΟΛΠΙΔΩΝ ΠΑΤΡΙΑ
Chilius te rogat, & ego ejus rogatû;
.
Cicero ad Attic.
i. 9.
, which may signify twenty different things, relative either to the worship of Ceres in particular, or to the Athenian Institutions in general; but which can hardly be applied to the Eleusinian Mysteries
As the B. of G. alledges the authority of Victorius, I shall shelter myself under the names and reasons of Groevius and the Abbé Mongault, and even transcribe the words of the former.
Non est ut hic intelligantur ritus illi secretories, qui tantùm Mystis noti erant, & sine Capitis periculo vulgari non poterant, sed illa sacra & ceremoniae, quibus in Eleusiniis celebrandis utebantur in omnium oculis Eumolpidae; quasque Poetae & pris
i Scriptores alii commemorant passim: aut fortè per Eumolpidas intelligit tectè ipsos Athenienses: ut petierit Chilius, Atheniensium leges & disciplinam sibi describi & mitti.
.
Thus it appears that both the antient and modern poets afforded Virgil a pattern for this famous episode.
How does this appear? From an old Poem, of whose contents the Critic is totally ignorant, and from an obscure passage, the meaning of which he has most probably mistaken.
Instead of conjecturing what Virgil might or ought to do, it would seem far more natural to examine what he has done. The Bishop of Gloucester attempts to prove, that the Descent to Hell is properly an Initiation; since the Sixth Book of the Aeneid really contains the secret Doctrine as well as the Ceremonies of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
What was this SECRET DOCTRINE? As I profess my ignorance, we must consult the Oracle.
The secret Doctrine of the Mysteries revealed to the Initiated, that JUPITER ... AND THE WHOLE RABBLE OF LICENTIOUS DEITIES, WERE ONLY DEAD MORTALS
D. L. vol. I. p. 154.
.
Is any thing like this laid open in the Sixth Book of Virgil? Not the remotest hint of it can be discovered throughout the whole Book; and thus, to use his Lordship's own words, SOMETHING (I had almost written EVERY THING) is still wanting "to complete the IDENTIFICATION
Idem, p. 277.
.
Notwithstanding this disappointment, which is cautiously concealed from the reader, the learned Bishop still courses round the Elysian Fields in quest of a Secret. Once he is so lucky as to find Aeneas talking with the Poet Musaeus, whom tradition has reckoned among the founders of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Critic listens to their conversation; but, alas! Aeneas is only enquiring, in what part of the garden he may find his Father's shade; to which Musaeus returns a very polite answer. Anchises himself is our last hope. As that venerable shade explains to his son some mysterious doctrines, concerning the Universal Mind and the Transmigration of Souls, his Lordship is pleased to assure us, that these are THE HIDDEN DOCTRINES OF PERFECTION revealed only to the Initiated. Let us for a moment lay aside Hypothesis, and read Virgil.
It is observable, that the three great Poets of Rome were all addicted to the Epicurean philosophy; a System, however, the least suited to a Poet; since it banishes all the genial and active Powers of Nature, to substitute in their room a dreary void, blind atoms, and indolent Gods. A Description of the Infernal Shades was incompatible with the ideas of a Philosopher, whose disciples boasted, that he had rescued the captive World from the Tyranny of Religion, and the Fear of a Future State. These ideas, Virgil was obliged to reject: But he does still more; he abandons not only the CHANCE of Epicurus, but even these Gods, whom he so nobly employs in the rest of his Poem, that he may offer to the Reader's imagination a far more specious and splendid sett of Ideas.
Principio coelum, ac terras, camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum Lunae, Titaniaque astra
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, & magno se corpore miscet
Aeneid, vi. 724.
.
The more we examine these lines, the more we shall feel the sublime Poetry of them. But they have likewise an air of Philosophy and even of Religion, which goes off on a nearer approach. The mind which is INFUSED
Quomodo porro Deus iste si nihil esset nisi animus, aut infixus aut
infusus
esset in mundo.
Cicero de Naturâ Deor.
l. i. c. 11.
into the several parts of Matter, and which MINGLES ITSELF with the mighty mass, scarce retains any Property of a Spiritual Substance; and bears too near an affinity to the Principles, which the impious Spinoza revived rather than invented.
I am not insensible, that we should be slow to suspect, and still slower to condemn. The poverty of human language, and the obscurity of human ideas, makes it difficult to speak worthily of THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE. Our most religious Poets, in striving to express the presence and energy of the Deity, in every part of the Universe, deviate unwarily into images, which are scarcely distinguished from Materialism. Thus our Ethic Poet:
All are but parts of one stupendous Whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul
Pope's Essay on Man, Epistle I. ver. 267.
;
and several passages of Thomson require a like favourable construction. But these writers deserve that favour, by the sublime manner in which they celebrate the great Father of the Universe, and by those effusions of love and gratitude, which are inconsistent with the Materialist's System. Virgil has no such claim to our indulgence. THE MIND of the UNIVERSE is rather a Metaphysical than a Theological Being. His intellectual qualities are faintly distinguished from the Powers of Matter, and his moral Attributes, the source of all religious worship, form no part of Virgil's creed.
Yet is this creed approved
D. L. vol. I. p. 278.
by our Orthodox Prelate, as free from any mixture of Spinozism. I congratulate his Lordship, on his indulgent and moderate temper. His Brethren (I mean those of former times) had much sharper eyes for spying out a latent Heresy. Yet I cannot easily persuade myself, that Virgil's notions were ever the creed of a religious Society, like that of the Mysteries. Luckily, indeed, I have no occasion to persuade myself of it; unless I should prefer his Lordship's mere authority to the voice of Antiquity, which assures me, that this System was either invented or imported into Greece by Pythagoras; from the writings of whose disciples Virgil might so very naturally borrow it.
Anchises then proceeds to inform his son, that the souls both of men and of animals were of celestial origin, and (as I understand him) parts of the Universal Mind; but that by their union with earthly bodies they contracted such impurities as even Death could not purge away. Many expiations, continues the venerable shade, are requisite, before the soul, restored to its original Simplicity, is capable of a place in Elysium. The far greater part are obliged to revisit the upper world, in other characters and in other bodies; and thus by gradual steps to reascend towards their first perfection.
This moral Transmigration was undoubtedly taught in the Mysteries. As the Bishop asserts this from the best authority, we are surprized at a sort of diffidence, unusual to his Lordship, when he advances things from his own intuitive knowledge. In one place, this Transmigration is part of the hidden Doctrine of Perfection
D. L. vol. I. p. 279.
; in another, it is one of those principles, which were promiscuously communicated to all
Idem, p. 142.
. The truth seems to be, that his Lordship was afraid to rank among the secrets of the Mysteries, what was professed and believed by so many Nations and Philosophers. The pre-existence of the human soul is a very natural idea; and from that idea speculations and fables of its successive revolution through various bodies will arise. From Japan to Egypt, the Transmigration has been part of the popular and religious creed
See our modern Relations of Japan, China, India, &c. and for Egypt, Herodotus, l. ii.
. Pythagoras
Ovid. Metamorph. xv. 69, &c. 158, &c.
and Plato
Plato in Phaedro & in Republic. l. x.
have endeavoured to demonstrate the truth of it, by facts, as well as by arguments.
Of all these visions (which should have been confined to the Poets) none is more pleasing and sublime, than that which Virgil has invented. Aeneas sees before him his posterity, the Heroes of antient Rome; a long series of airy forms
Demanding life, impatient for the skies,
and prepared to assume, with their new bodies, the little passions and transient glories of their destined lives.
Having
I shall mention here, once for all, that I do not always confine myself to the ORDER of his Lordship's PROOFS.
thus revealed the secret Doctrine of the Mysteries, the learned Prelate examines the Ceremonies. With the assistance of Meursius
Meursii Eleusinia, five de Cereris Eleusinae sacro.
, he pours out a torrent of Erudition to convince us, that the scenes thro' which Aeneas passed in his descent to the Shades, were the same as were represented to the Aspirants in the Celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries. From thence, his Lordship draws his great conclusion, That the Descent is no more than an emblem of the Hero's Initiation.
A staunch Polemic will feed a dispute, by dwelling on every accessary circumstance, whilst a candid Critic will confine himself to the more essential points of it. I shall, therefore, readily allow, what I believe may in general be true, that the Mysteries exhibited a theatrical representation of all that was believed or imagined of the lower world; that the Aspirant was conducted through the mimic scenes of Erebus, Tartarus, and Elysium; and that a warm Enthusiast, in describing these awful Spectacles, might express himself as if he had actually visited the infernal Regions
See D. L. vol. I. particularly p. 280.
. All this I can allow, and yet allow nothing to the Bishop of Gloucester's Hypothesis. It is not surprising that the COPY was like the ORIGINAL; but it still remains undetermined, WHETHER VIRGIL INTENDED TO DESCRIBE THE ORIGINAL OR THE COPY.
Lear and Garrick, when on the stage, are the same; nor is it possible to distinguish the Player from the Monarch. In the Green-room, or after the representation, we easily perceive, what the warmth of fancy and the justness of imitation had concealed from us. In the same manner it is from extrinsical circumstances, that we may expect the discovery of Virgil's Allegory. Every one of those circumstances persuades me, that Virgil described a real, not a mimic world, and that the Scene lay in the Infernal Shades, and not in the Temple of Ceres.
The singularity of the Cumoean Shores must be present to every traveller who has once seen them. To a superstitious mind, the thin crust, vast cavities, sulphureous steams, poisonous exhalations, and fiery torrents, may seem to trace out the narrow Confine of the two Worlds. The lake Avernus was the chief object of religious horror; the black Woods which surrounded it, when Virgil first came to Naples, were perfectly suited to feed the superstition of the People
Strabo, l. v. p. 168.
. It was generally believed, that this deadly flood was the entrance of Hell
Silius Italicus, l. xii.
; and an Oracle was once established on its banks, which pretended, by magic rites, to call up the departed Spirits
Diod. Sicul. l. iv. p. 267. edit. Wesseling.
. Aeneas, who revolved a more daring enterprise, addresses himself to the Priestess of those dark Regions. Their conversation may perhaps inform us, whether an Initiation, or a descent to the Shades, was the object of this enterprize. She endeavours to deter the Hero, by setting before him all the dangers of his rash undertaking:
Facilis descensus Averni:
Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est
Aeneid, vi. 126.
.
These particulars are absolutely irreconcileable with the idea of Initiation, but perfectly agreeable to that of a real descent. That every step, and every instant, may lead us to the grave is a melancholy truth. The Mysteries were only open at stated times, a few days at most in the course of a year. The mimic descent of the Mysteries was laborious and dangerous, the return to light easy and certain. In real death, this order is inverted:
Pauci, quos aequus amavit
Jupiter, aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus,
Diis geniti, potuere
Idem, vi. 129.
.
These Heroes, as we learn from the speech of Aeneas, were Hercules, Orpheus, Castor and Pollux, Theseus, and Pirithous. Of all these, Antiquity believed, that before their death they had seen the habitations of the dead; nor, indeed, will any of the circumstances tally with a supposed Initiation. The adventure of Eurydice, the alternate life of the brothers, and the forcible intrusion of Alcides, Theseus, and Pirithous, would mock the endeavours of the most subtle Critic, who should try to melt them down into his favourite Mysteries. The exploits of Hercules, who triumphed over the King of Terrors,
Tartareum ille manu custodem in vincla petivit,
Ipsius à solio regis traxitque trementem
Aeneid, vi. 395.
,
was a wild imagination of the Greeks
Homer. Odyss. l. xi. ver. 623. Apoll. Biblioth. l. ii. c. 5.
. But it was the duty of antient Poets, to adopt and embellish these popular Traditions; and it is the interest of every man of taste, to acquiesce in THEIR POETICAL FICTIONS.
After this, we may leave ingenious men to search out what, or whether any thing, gave rise to those idle stories. Diodorus Siculus represents Pluto as a kind of undertaker, who made great improvements in the useful art of funerals
Diodor. Sicul. l. v. p. 386. Edit. Wesseling.
. Some have sought for the Poetic Hell in the mines of Epirus
Leclerc Biblioth. Universelle, tom. vi. p. 55.
, and others in the Mysteries of Egypt. As this last notion was published in French
By the Abbé Terasson, in his Philosophical Romance of Sethos, printed at Amsterdam in the year 1732. See the Third Book, from beginning to end. The author was a Scholar and a Philosopher. His book has far more variety and originality than Telemachus. Yet Sethos is forgotten, and Telemachus will be immortal. That harmony of style, and the great talent of speaking to the heart and passions, which Fenelon possessed, was unknown to Terasson. I am not surprized that Homer was admired by the one, and criticized by the other.
, six years before it was invented in English
See D. L. vol. I. p. 228, &c. The first edition was printed in London, in the year 1738.
, the learned author of the
D. L.
has been severely treated by some ungenerous Adversaries
Cowper's Life of Socrates, p. 102.
. Appearances, it must be confessed, wear a very suspicious aspect: But what are appearances, when weighed against his Lordship's declaration,
That this is a point of honor in which he is particularly delicate; and that he may venture to boast, that he believes no Author was ever more averse to take to himself what belonged to another
Letter from a late Professor of Oxford, &c. p. 133.
?
Besides, he has enriched this mysterious discovery with many collateral arguments, which would for ever have escaped all inferior Critics. In the case of Hercules, for instance, he demonstrates, that the Initiation and the descent to the Shades were the same thing, because an Antient has affirmed that they were different
D. L. vol. III. p. 277.
; and that Alcides was initiated at Eleusis, before he set out for Taenarus, in order to descend to the Infernal Regions.
There is, however, a single circumstance, in the narration of Virgil, which has justly surprized Critics, unacquainted with any, but the obvious sense of the Poet; I mean the IVORY GATE. The Bishop of Glocester seizes this, as the secret mark of Allegory, and becomes eloquent in the exultation of Triumph
Idem, vol. I. p. 229.
. I could, however, represent to him, that in a work which was deprived of the Author's last revision, Virgil might too hastily employ what Homer had invented, and at last unwarily slide into an Epicurean idea
Idem, vol. I. p. 283.
. Let this be as it may, an obscure expression is a weak basis for an elaborate System; and whatever his Lordship may chuse to do, I had much rather reproach my favourite Poet with want of care in one line, than with want of taste throughout a whole Book
Horace seems to have used as unguarded an expression▪
Et adscribi
quietis
Ordinibus patiar Deorum.
Od. l. iii. 3.
The word and idea of
Quietis
are perfectly Epicurean; but rather clash with the active passions displayed in the rest of Juno's speech.
His Lordship (D. L. vol. II. p. 140) accuses Virgil himself of a like inattention; which, with his usual gentleness, he calls an
absurdity.
.
Virgil has borrowed, as usual, from Homer, his Episode of the Infernal Shades, and, as usual, has infinitely improved what the Grecian had invented. If, among a profusion of beauties, I durst venture to point out the most striking beauties of the Sixth Book, I should perhaps observe, 1. That after accompanying the Hero through the silent realms of Night and Chaos, we see with astonishment and pleasure a new Creation bursting upon us; 2. That we examine, with a delight which springs from the love of Virtue, the just empire of Minos; in which the apparent irregularities of the present System are corrected; where the Patriot who died for his Country is happy, and the Tyrant who oppressed it is miserable. 3. As we interest ourselves in the Hero's fortunes, we share his feelings: The melancholy Palinurus, the wretched Deiphobus, the indignant Dido; the Grecian Kings, who tremble at his presence, and the venerable Anchises, who embraces his pious son, and displays to his sight the future glories of his race; all these objects affects us with a variety of pleasing sensations.
Let us for a moment obey the mandate of our great Critic, and consider these awful scenes as a mimic shew, exhibited in the Temple of Ceres, by the contrivance of the Priest, or, if he pleases, of the Legislator. Whatever was animated (I appeal to every reader of taste), whatever ever was terrible, or whatever was pathetic, evaporates into lifeless Allegory:
tenuem sine viribus umbram.
Dat inania verba,
Dat sine mente sonum, gressusque effingit euntis.
The end of Philosophy is Truth; the end of Poetry is Pleasure. I willingly adopt any interpretation which adds new beauties to the Original; I assist in persuading myself, that it is just; and could almost shew the same indulgence to the Critic's as to the Poet's fiction. But should a grave Doctor lay out fourscore pages, in explaining away the sense and spirit of Virgil, I should have every inducement to believe, that Virgil's soul was very different from the Doctor's.
I have almost exhausted my own, and probably my reader's patience, whilst I have obsequiously waited on his Lordship, through the several stages of an intricate Hypothesis. He must now permit me to alledge two very simple reasons, which persuade me, that Virgil has not revealed the Secret of the Eleusinian Mysteries; the first is HIS IGNORANCE, and the second HIS DISCRETION.
I. As his Lordship has not made the smallest attempt to prove that Virgil was himself initiated, it is plain that he supposed it, as a thing of course. Had he any right to suppose it? By no means: That ceremony might naturally enough finish the 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
See the Life of Virgil by Donatus, the Sixth Eclogue, and the Second Georgic, ver. 490.
; 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
Lucian in Alexandro, p. 489.
; 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
Cornel. Nepos, in Vit Attici, c. 2, 3, 4.
. 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 very defective
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.
; 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.
Altho' Virgil's father was hardly of a lower rank than Horace's, yet the peculiar character of the latter afforded his fon 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 bonae paulò plus artis Athenae:
Scilicet ut possem curvo dignoscere rectum,
Atque inter silvas Academi quaerere verum
Horat. l. II. ep. ii. ver. 43.
.
The sphere of Virgil's education did not extend beyond Mantua, Cremona, Milan and Naples
Donat. in Virgil.
.
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
Horat l. IV. od. xii.
. It was during that time that he composed his Eclogues, the hasty productions of a Muse capable of far greater things
Donat. in Virgil.
.
By the liberality of Augustus and his courtiers, Virgil soon became possessed of an affluent fortune
Prope
Centies Sestertium,
about eighty thousand pounds.
. He composed the Georgics and the Aeneid, in his elegant Villas of Campania and Sicily; and seldom quitted those pleasing retreats even to come to Rome
Donat. in Virgil.
.
After he had finished the Aeneid, 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
Id. ibid.
. He was at Athens, with Augustus, in the summer of AVC 735; and whilst Augustus was at Athens, the Eleusinian Mysteries were celebrated
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 V 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.
. It is not impossible, that Virgil might then be initiated, as well as the Indian Philosopher
Strabo, l. xv. p. 720.
; but the Aeneid could receive no improvement from his newly-acquired knowledge. He was taken ill at Megara. The journey encreased his disorder, and he expired at Brundusium, the twenty-second of September of the same year 735
Donat. in Virgil.
.
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
D. L. vol. I. p. 188.
. Here indeed I should be apt to suspect some mistake, or, at least, a want of precision in his Lordship's Ideas; as Salmasius
Salmasius ad Scriptores Hist. August. p. 55.
and Casaubon
Casaubon ad Scriptor. Hist. August. p. 25.
, 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
Sueton. in Claud. c. 25.
.
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 HONORAS OF RELIGION. I sincerely acquit the Bishop of Glocester 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
D. L. vol. I. p. 147.
; 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 IMPIOUS but INFAMOUS: and yet his Lordship maintains, that after the compliment of a formal Apology,
Sit mihi fas, audita loqui
Idem, p. 240.
.
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
D. L. vol. I. p. 277.
.
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 Honor 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
Vulgârit arcanae, sub iisdem
Sit trabibus, fragilemque mecum
Solvat phaselum
Horat. l. III. od. ii.
.
Nor can I easily persuade myself, that the ingenuous mind of Virgil could have deserved this Excommunication.
These lines belong to an Ode of Horace, which has every merit, except that of order. That Death in our Country's cause is pleasant and honourable; that Virtue does not depend on the caprice of a popular Election; and that the Mysteries of Ceres ought not to be disclosed, are ideas which have no apparent connection. The beautiful disorder of Lyric Poetry, is the usual Apology made by Professed Critics on these occasions:
Son style impetueux, souvent marche au hazard;
Chez elle, un beau desordre est un effet de l' art
Boileau, Art Poetique, l. ii. v. 72.
.
An insufficient Apology for the few, who dare judge from their own feelings. I shall not deny, that the irregular notes of an untutored Muse have sometimes delighted me. We can very seldom be displeased with the unconstrained workings of Nature. But the Liberty of an Outlaw is very different from that of a Savage. It is a mighty disagreeable sight, to observe a Lyric Writer of Taste and Reflection striving to forget the Laws of Composition, disjointing the order of his Ideas, and working himself up into artificial Madness,
Ut cum Ratione insaniat.
I had once succeeded (as I thought) in removing this defect, by the help of an Hypothesis which connected the several parts of Horace's Ode with each other. My Ideas appeared (I mean to myself) most ingeniously conceived. I read the Ode once more, and burnt my Hypothesis. But to return to our principal subject.
The Date of this Ode may be of use to us; and the date may be fixed with tolerable certainty, from the mention of the PARTHIANS, who are described as the enemies against whom a brave youth should signalize his valor.
Parthos
feroces
Vexet eques metuendus hastâ,
&c.
Those who are used to the LABOURED HAPPINESS of all Horace's expressions
Curiosa Felicitas.
The ingenious Dr. Warton has a very strong dislike to this celebrated character of Horace. I suspect that I am in the wrong, since, in a point of Criticism, I differ from Dr. Warton. I cannot however forbear thinking, that the expression
is itself
what Petronius wished to describe; the happy Union of such Ease as seems the gift of fortune, with such justness as can only be the result of care and labor.
will readily allow, that if the Parthians are mentioned rather than the Britons or Cantabrians, the Gauls or the Dalmatians, it could be only at a time when a PARTHIAN WAR engaged the public attention. This reflection confines us between the years of Rome 729 and 735. Of these six years, that of 734 has a superior claim to the Composition of the Ode.
Julius Caesar was prevented by death from revenging the defeat of Crassus
Sueton. in Caesar. c. 44.
. This glorious task, unsuccessfully attempted by Marc Antony
Plut. in Vit. Anton. Julian in Caesar. p. 324. edit. Spanheim.
, seemed to be reserved for the prudence and felicity of Augustus; who became sole master of the Roman World in the year 724; but it was not till the year 729, that, having changed the civil administration, and pacified the Western provinces, he had leisure to turn his Views towards the East. From that time, Horace, in compliance with the Public wish, began to animate both Prince and People to revenge the manes of Crassus
Horat. l. I. od. ii. L. III. od. v. L. II. serm. i. v. 15, &c.
. The cautious Policy of Augustus, still averse to war, was at length roused in the year 734, by some disturbances in Armenia. He passed over into Asia, and sent the young Tiberius with an army beyond the Euphrates. Every appearance promised a glorious war. But the Parthian monarch, Phrahates, alarmed at the approach of the Roman Legions, and diffident of the fidelity of his subjects, diverted the storm, by a timely and humble submission:
Jus, imperiumque Phraates
Caesaris accepit gentibus minor
Horat. l. I. epist. xii. Vall. Pater. l. II. c. xciv. Tacit. Annal. l. II. c. i. Sueton. in Octav. c. xxi. and in Tiber. c. xiv. Justin, l. XLII. c. v. Dion Cassius, l. LIV. p. 736. edit. Reimar. Joseph. Ant. l. XV. c. v. Ovid. Fast. v. ver. 551, &c.
.
Caesar returned in Triumph to Rome, with the Parthian Hostages, and the Roman ensigns, which had been taken from Crassus.
These busy scenes, which engage the attention of Contemporaries, are far less interesting to posterity, than the silent labours, or even amusements of a man of Genius.
Caesar dum magnus ad altum
Fulminat Euphraten bello, victorque volentes
Per Populos dat jura, viamque adfectat Olympo.
Illo Virgilium me tempore dulcis alebat
Parthenope, studiis florentem, ignobilis otî.
Whilst Caesar humbled the Parthians, Virgil was composing the Aeneid. It is well known, that this noble Poem occupied the Author, without being able to satisfy him, during the twelve last years of his life, from the year 723 to the year 735
Donat. in Virgil.
. The public expectation was soon raised, and the modest Virgil was sometimes obbliged to gratify the impatient curiosity of his friends. Soon after the death of young Marcellus
Marcellus died in the latter end of the year 731
Usserii Annales, p.
555.
, he recited the second, fourth, and SIXTH books of the Aeneid, in the presence of Augustus and Octavia
Donat. in Virgil.
. He even sometimes read parts of his work to more numerous companies; with a desire of obtaining their judgment, rather than their applause. In this manner, Propertius seems to have heard the SHIELD OF AENEAS, and from that specimen he ventures to foretell the approaching birth of a Poem, which will surpass the Iliad.
Actia Virgilium Custodis litora Phoebi,
Caesaris & fortes dicere posse rates
Qui nunc Aeneae Trojani suscitat Arma
Jactaque Lavinis moenia litoribus.
Cedite Romani scriptores, cedite Graii,
Nescio quid majus nascitur Iliade
Propert. l. II. el. xxv. v. 66.
.
As a friend and as a Critic, Horace was entitled to all Virgil's confidence, and was probably acquainted with the whole progress of the Aeneid, from the first rude sketch, which Virgil drew up in Prose, to that harmonious Poetry, which the author alone thought unworthy of posterity.
To resume my Idea, which depended on this long deduction of Circumstances; when Horace composed the second ode of his third Book, the Aeneid, and particularly the Sixth Book, were already known to the Public. The detestation of the Wretch who reveals the Mysteries of Ceres, though expressed in general terms, must be applied by all Rome to the author of the Sixth Book of the Aeneid. Can we seriously suppose, THAT HORACE WOULD HAVE BRANDED WITH SUCH WANT ON IN FAMY, ONE OF THE MEN IN THE WORLD WHOM HE LOVED AND HONOURED THE MOST
Horat. l. I. od. iii. L. I. serm. v. ver. 39, &c.
?
Nothing remains to say, except that Horace was himself ignorant of his friend's allegorical meaning, which the Bishop of Glocester has since revealed to the World. It may be so; yet, for my own part, I should be very well satisfied with understanding Virgil no better than Horace did.
It is perhaps some such foolish fondness for Antiquity, which inclines me to doubt, whether the BISHOP OF GLOCESTER has really united the severe sense of ARISTOTLE with the sublime imagination of LONGINUS. Yet a judicious Critic, (who is now, I believe, ARCHDEACON OF GLOCESTER) assures the Public, that his Patron's mere amusements have done much more than the joint labours of the two Grecians. I shall conclude these observations with a remarkable passage from the Archdeacon's Dedication
See the Dedication of Horace's Epistle to Augustus, with an English Commentary and Notes.
:
It was not enough, in YOUR ENLARGED VIEW OF THINGS, to restore either of these models (ARISTOTLE or LONGINUS) to their original splendor. They were both to be revived; or rather A NEW ORIGINAL PLAN OF CRITICISM to be struck out, WHICH SHOULD UNITE THE VIRTUES OF EACH OF THEM. This Experiment was made on the two greatest of our own Poets (Shakespeare and Pope), and by reflecting all the LIGHTS OF THE IMAGINATION ON THE SEVEREST REASON, every thing was affected which the warmest admirer of antient art could promise himself from such a union. BUT YOU WENT FARTHER: By joining to these powers A PERFECT INSIGHT INTO HUMAN NATURE; and so ennobling the exercise of literary, by the justest moral censure, YOU HAVE NOW AT LENGTH ADVANCED CRITICISM TO ITS FULL GLORY?
POSTSCRIPT.
I WAS not ignorant, that, several years since, the Rev. Dr. Jortin had favoured the Public, with a DISSERTATION ON THE STATE OF THE DEAD, AS DESCRIBED BY HOMER AND VIRGIL
Six Dissertations on Different Subjects, published in a Volume in Octavo, in the year 1755, It is the Sixth Dissertation, p. 207-324.
: But the Book is now grown so scarce, that I was not able to procure a sight of it till after these Papers had been already sent to the press. I found Dr. Jortin's performance, as I expected, moderate, learned, and critical. Among a variety of ingenious observations, there are two or three which are very closely connected with my present subject.
I had passed over in silence one argument of the Bishop of Glocester, or rather of Scarron and the Bishop of Glocester; since the former found the Remark, and the latter furnished the Inference.
Discite justitiam moniti, & non temnere Divos,
cries the unfortunate Phlegyas. In the midst of his torments, he preaches Justice and Piety, like Ixion in Pindar. A very useful piece of advice, says the French Buffoon, for those who were already damned to all Eternity:
Cette sentence est bonne & belle:
Mais en enfer, de quoi sert elle?
From this judicious piece of Criticism his Lordship argues, that Phlegyas was preaching not to the Dead, but to the Living; and that Virgil is only describing the Mimic Tartarus, which was exhibited at Eleusis for the instruction of the Initiated.
I shall transcribe one or two of the reasons, which Dr. Jortin condescends to oppose to Scarron's Criticism.
To preach to the Damned, says he, is labour in vain. And what if it is? It might be part of his punishment, to exhort himself and others, when exhortations were too late. This admonition, as far as it relates to himself and his companions in misery, is to be looked upon not so much as an admonition to amend, but as a bitter sarcasm, and reproaching of past iniquities.
It is labour in vain. But in the poetical system, it seems to have been the occupation of the Damned to labour in vain, to catch at meat and drink that fled from them, &c.
His instruction, like that of Ixion in Pindar, might be for the use of the living. You will say,
how can that be?
Surely nothing is more easy and intelligible. The Muses hear him—The Muses reveal it to the Poet, and the inspired Poet reveals it to mankind. And so much for Phlegyas and Monsieur Scarron.
It is prettily observed by Dr. Jortin,
That Virgil, after having shone out with full splendor through the Sixth Book, sets at last in a cloud.
The IVORY GATE puzzles every Commentator, and grieves every lover of Virgil: Yet it affords no advantages to the Bishop of Glocester. The objection presses as hard on the notion of an Initiation, as on that of a real Descent to the Shades.
The troublesome conclusion still remains as it was; and from the manner in which the Hero is dismissed after the Ceremonies, we learn, that in those Initiations, the Machinery, and the whole Shew, was (in the Poet's opinion) a representation of things, which had no truth or reality.
Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto:
Sed
FALSA
ad coelum mittunt
INSOMNIA
manes.
Dreams in general, may be called
vain
and
deceitful, somnia vana,
or
somnia falsa,
if you will, as they are opposed to the
real
objects, which present themselves to us when we are awake. But when
false
dreams are opposed to
true
ones, there the Epithet
falsa
has another meaning. True dreams represent what is real, and shew what is true; false dreams represent things, which are not, or which are not true. Thus Homer and Virgil, and many other poets, and indeed the nature of the thing, distinguish them.
Dr. Jortin, though with reluctance, acquiesces in the common opinion, that by six unlucky lines, Virgil is destroying the beautiful System, which it had cost him eight hundred to raise. He explains too this preposterous conduct, by the usual expedient of the Poet's Epicureism. I only differ from him in attributing to haste and indiscretion, what he considers as the result of design.
Another reason, both new and ingenious, is assigned by Dr. Jortin, for Virgil explaining away his Hero's descent into an idle dream.
All communication with the Dead, the infernal powers, &c. belonged to the Art Magic, and Magic was held in abomination by the Romans.
Yet if it was held in ABOMINATION, it was supposed to be real. A writer would not have made his court to James the first, by representing the stories of Witchcraft as the Phantoms of an over-heated Imagination.
Whilst I am writing, a sudden thought occurs to me, which, rude and imperfect as it is, I shall venture to throw out to the Public. It is this. After Virgil, in imitation of Homer, had described the two Gates of Sleep, the Horn and the Ivory, he again takes up the first in a different sense:
QUA VERIS FACILIS DATUR EXITUS UMBRIS.
The TRUE SHADES, VERAE UMBRAE, were those airy forms which were continually sent to animate new bodies, such light and almost immaterial Natures as could without difficulty pass through a thin transparent substance. In this new sense, Aeneas and the Sybill, who were still incumbered with a load of flesh, could not pretend to the prerogative of TRUE SHADES. In their passage over Styx, they had almost sunk Charon's boat.
Gemuit sub pondere cymba
Sutilis, & multam accepit rimosa paludem.
Some other Expedient was requisite for their return; and since the Horn Gate would not afford them an easy dismission, the other passage, which was adorned with polished Ivory, was the only one that remained either for them, or for the Poet.
By this explanation, we save Virgil's judgement and religion, though I must own, at the expence of an uncommon harshness and ambiguity of expression. Let it only be remembered, that those, who, in desperate cases, conjecture with modesty, have a right to be heard with indulgence.
FINIS.