the general and one of the next in office under him. Agamemnon gives the provocation, and Achilles resents the injury Both parties are faulty in the quarrel; and accordingly they are both punished: the aggressor is forced to sue for peace to his inferior on dishonourable con. ditions: the deserter refuses the satisfaction of fered; and his obstinacy costs him his best friend. This works the natural effect of choler, and turns his rage against him by whom he was last affronted, and most sensibly. The greater anger expels the rest; but his character is stil preserved. In the mean time the Grecian army receives loss on loss, and is half destroyed by a pestilence into the bargain;

Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi. As the poet, in the hrst part of the example, had shown the bad effects of discord, so, after the reconcilement, he gives the good effects of unity; for Hector is slain, and then Troy must fall. By this it is probable, that Homer lived when the Median monarchy was grown formidable to the Grecians, and that the joint endeavours of his countrymen were little enough to preserve their common freedom from an encroaching enemy. Such was his moral, which all critics have allowed to be more noble than that of Virgil, though not adapted to the times in which the Roman poet lived. Had Virgil flourished in the age of Ennius, and addressed to Scipio, he had probably taken the same moral, or some other not unlike it: for then the Romans were in as much danger from the Carthaginian commonwealth, as the Grecians were from the Assyrian or Median monarchy. But we are to consider him as writing his poem in a time when the old form of government was subverted, and a new one just established by Octavius Cæsar, in effect by force of arms, but seein ingly by the consent of the Roman people. The commonwealth had received a deadly wound in the former civil wars betwixt Marius and Sylla. The commons, while the first prevailed, had almost shaken off the yoke of the nobility; and Marius and Cinna, like the captains of the mob, under the specious pretence of the public good, and of doing justice on the oppressors of their liberty, revenged themselves, without form of law, on their private enemies. Sylla, in his turn, proscribed the heads of the adverse party he too had nothing but liberty and reformation in his mouth; (for the cause of religion is but a modern motive to rebellion, invented by the Christian priesthood, refining on the heathen ;*)

This is one of our author's unseemly and far too frequent sneers at the clerical order, for which he is severely reprehended by Milbourne.

Sylla, to be sure, meant no more good to the Roman people than Marius before him, whatever he declared; but sacrificed the lives, and took the estates, of all his enemies, to gratify those who brought him into power. Such was the reformation of the government by both parties. The senate and the commons were the two bases on which it stood; and the two champions of either faction, each, destroyed the foundations of the other side; so the fabric, of consequence, must fall betwixt them, and tyranny must be built upon their ruins. This comes of altering fundamental laws and constitutionslike him, who, being in good health, lodged himself in a physician's house, and was over-persuaded by his landlord to take physic, (of which he died,) for the benefit of his doctor. Stavo ben: (was written on his monument) ma, per star meglio, sto quì.

After the death of those two usurpers, the commonwealth seemed to recover, and held up its head for a little time. But it was all the while in a deep consumption, which is a flattering disease. Pompey, Crassus, and Cæsar had found the sweets of arbitrary power; and each being a check to the other's growth, struck up a false friendship among themselves, and divided the government betwixt them, which none of them was able to assume alone. These were the public spirited men o their age; that is, patriots for their own interest. The commonwealth looked with a florid countenance in their management, spread in bulk, and all the while was wasting in the vitals. Not to trouble your lordship with the repetition of what you know-after the death of Crassus, Pompey found himselfoutwitted by Cæsar, broke with him, overpowered him in the senate, and caused, many unjust decrees to pass against him. Casar, thus injured, and unable to resist the faction of the nobles, which was now uppermost, (for he was à Marian,) had recourse to arms; and his cause was just against Pompey, but not against his country, whose constitution ought to have been sacred to him, and never to have been violated on the account of any private wrong. But he prevailed; and, heaven declaring for him, he became a providential monarch, under the title of perpetual dictator. He being murdered by his own son,* whom I neither dare commend, nor can justly blame, (though Dante, in his Inferno, has put him and Cassius, and

Here again Milbourne is very clamorous for authority, and exclaims, that it is one of the fundamental laws of Parnassus to write true history. Dryden probably rested upon the scandalous tale, that Cæsar intriguel with Servilia, the mother of Brutus; though it seems more likely, that he applied to his assassin the endearing epithet of my son merely as a term of affectionate friendship.

Judas Iscariot betwixt them, into the great devi's mouth,) the commonwealth popped up its head for the third time, under Brutus and Cassius, and then sunk for ever.

Thus the Roman people were grossly gulled twice or thrice over, and as often enslaved, in one century, and under the same pretence of reformation. At last the two battles of Philip pi gave the decisive stroke against liberty; and, not long after, the commonwealth was turned into a monarchy, by the conduct and good fortune of Augustus. It it is true, that the despotic power could not have fallen into better hands than those of the first and second Cæsar. Your lordship well knows what obligations Virgil had to the latter of them: he saw, beside, that the commonwealth was lost without resource; the heads of it destroyed: the senate new moulded, grown degenerate, and either bought off, or thrusting their own necks into the yoke, out of fear of being forced. Yet I may safely affirm for our great author, (as men of good sense are generally honest,) that he was still of republican principles in his heart,

Secretosque pios, his dantem jura Catonem,*

I think, I need use no other argument to justify my opinion, than that of this one line, taken from the eighth book of the neïs. If he had not well studied his patron's temper, it might have ruined him with another prince. But Augustus was not discontented, at least that we can find, that Cato was placed, by his own poet, in Elysium, and there giving laws to the holy souls who deserved to be separated from the vulgar sort of good spirits; for his conscience could not but whisper to the arbitrary monarch, that the kings of Rome were at first elective, and governed not without a senate;-that Romulus was no hereditary prince; and though, after is death, he received divine honours for the good he did on earth, yet he was but a god of their own making that the last Tarquin was

• The sense which our author has put on this line, has been warmly disputed; many commentators contending, that the elder Cato, called the Censor, and not Cato of Utica, is the person therein honourd. Pope held the same opinion with our poet, and bandoned it; and Spence, quoted by Mr. Malone, hus expresses himself:-"Virgil represents the blessed in Elysium, and Cato giving laws to them. This agrees best with the character of Cato the CenBor. See Plutarch's account of the elder Cato; of his strict judgment and laws; of the statue set up to his honour in the temple of Salus, and of the inscription under it, in his life of that great lawgiver. Seneca speaks as highly of him in that capacity, as of Scipio in the military way: M. Porcius Censorius, quem tam reipublicæ profuit nasci, quam Scipionem; alter enim cum hostibus nostris bellum, alter cum moribus gessit. Epist. lxxxvii. If Cato Uticensis could have been placed at all in Elysium by Virgil, (who says,

expelled justly for overt acts of tyranny, and mal-administration; for such are the conditions of an elective kingdom: and I meddle not with others, being, for my own opinion, of Montaigne's principles, that an honest man ought to be contented with that form of government, and with those fundamental constitutions of it, which he received from his ancestors, and under which himself was born; though at the same time he confessed freely, that, if he could have chosen his place of birth, it should have been at Venice-which, for many reasons, I dislike, and am better pleased to have been born an Englishman.

But, to return from my long rambling-I say, that Virgil having maturely weighed the condition of the times in which he lived; that an entire liberty was not to be retrieved; that the present settlement had the prospect of a long continuance in the same family, or those adopted into it; that he held his paternal estate from the bounty of the conqueror, by whom he was likewise enriched, esteemed, and cherished; that this conqueror, though of a bad kind, was the very best of it; that the arts of peace flourished under him; that all men might be happy, if they would be quiet; that, now he was in possession of the whole, yet he shared a great part of his authority with the senate; that he would be chosen into the ancient offices of the commonwealth, and ruled by the power which he derived from them, and prorogued his government from time to time, still, as it were, threatening to dismiss himself from public cares, which he exercised more for the common good, than for any delight he took in greatness :these things, I say, being considered by the poet, he concluded it to be the interest of his country to be so governed; to infuse an awful respect into the people towards such a prince; by that respect to confirm their obedience to him, and by that obedience to make them happy. This was the moral of his divine poem ;*-hon

that such as kill themselves are in another part of Hades,) he would, at least, be a very improper per son to be set by him in so eminent a situation there."

This is disputed by the learned Heyne. "De consilio quod poeta in Eneide conscribenda sequutus sit, et de fine, quem propositum habuerit, multa varii comminiscuntur. Nihil quidem magis alienum esse potest ab epico carmine quam allegoria; jugulat enim totam ejus vim, rerum et hominum dignitatem attenuat, gratum animi errorem excutit, et æstum inter legendum refrigerat, voluptatemque omnem intercipit. Certatim tamen viri docti argutiis suis Eneæ per sonam nobis eripere, et Augustum submittere allaborarunt. Etiam ex parata nova in Latio sede miseros Trojanos exturbarunt; adumbratum esse a poeta novum tum Romæ constitutum unius principatum. Simili acumine alii ar cana. nescio quæ, dominationis Augusteæ consilia, in Eneide condenda deprehendere sibi visi sunt. Ita

est in the poet; honourable to the emperor, whom he derives from a divine extraction; and reflecting part of that honour on the Roman people, whom he derives also from the Trojans; and not only profitable, but necessary, to the present age, and likely to be such to their posterity. That it was the received opinion, that the Romans were descended from the Trojans, and Julius Cæsar from Iulus the son of Eneas, was enough for Virgil; though perhaps he thought not so himself, or that Eneas ever was in Italy; which Bochartus manifestly proves. And Homer, where he says that Jupiter hated the house of Priam, and was resolved to transfer the kingdom to the family of Æneas, yet mentions nothing of his leading a colony into a foreign country, and settling there. But that the Romans valued themselves on their Trojan ancestry, is so undoubted a truth, that I need not prove it. Even the seals which we have remaining of Julius Caesar, which we know to be antique, have the star of Venus over them (though they were all graven after his death,)

Spencius, elegantis ingenii vir, [Polymetis, Dial. iii. p. 17. sqq.1 TOTÒveрos esse Eneidem sibi persuasum habebat; neque aliud quicquam poetam spectasse, quam ut animis libertatis ereptæ desiderio regris fomenta admoveret, et novum principem approbaret. Nihil tamen Eneæ personam, fortunam, facta, et fata habere videas, quod ei consilio respondeat; nullus in Eneide populus est liber, qui dominum accipiat; nulla regni seu imperii, monarchiam vocamus, bona videas exposita aut com. mendata; verbo nihil occurrit, quo libertatis amore contacti animi adduci aut allici possint, ut a bono principe malint tuto regnari quam cum libertatis vano nomine paucorum potentium dominatione vexari. In Julia gentis honorem, quae ab lulo Æneæ filio originem ducere videri volebat, nonnulla passim suaviter memorari, ad Augusti laudes ingeniose alia inseri, ipsa carminis lectione manifestum sit, et a veteribus quoque Grammaticis jam moni tum est locis pluribus; sed, quantam vim ea res ad dominationemi Augusti commmendandam habere potuerit, mihi non satis constare lubenter fateor. Neque, si nova Æneæ sedes in Latio divinis humanisque juribus vallata fuerit, quale inde propugnac ulum novo Augusti regno partum sit, intelligo; ut adeo, si demonstrari hoc possit, poetæ consilium illud in Eneide condenda propositum fuisse, parum feliciter eum in eo perficiendo et exsequendo versatum videri dicerem.

"In eandem tamen opinionem jam ante Spencium inciderat vir doctus inter Francogallos, [L'Abbé Va try,) qui unprimis similitudinem inter Æneæ et Augusti personam et fortunam diserte persequitur. Ingeniose eum ludere non neges; et convenit ei cum multis aliis doctis viris, qui opinantur, Augustum sub Enea persona esse adumbratum; eo referunt multa alia. Videas nonnullos tam egregie sibi placere in hoc invento, ut undique conquirant et venentur ea, quæ ad Augustum accommodari possint. Sic oris dig. nitas, (lib. i. 539, Os humerosque deos,) cum assen. tatione in Augustum memorata est. Ignoscenda hec putem alicui ex media assentatorum turba, qui Eneide lecta unam vel alteram Eneæ laudem ad Augustum traheret, ut Principi palparet. Sed, ut Maro'am dissimiles personas, fortunas, virtutes, et facta ac res gestas, inter se comparare voluerit,

as a note that he was deified. I doubt not but one reason, why Augustus should be so passionately concerned for the preservation of the Enels, which its author had condemned to be burnt, as an imperfect poem, by his last will and testament, was, because it did him a real service, as well as an honour; that a work should not be lost, where his divine original was celebrated in verse, which had the character of immortality stamped upon it.

Neither were the great Roman families, which flourished in his time, less obliged by him than the emperor. Your lordship knows with what address he makes mention of them," as captains of ships, or leaders in the war; and even some of Italian extraction are not forgotten. These are the single stars which are sprinkle through the Eneis: but there are whole constellations of them in the Fifth Book. And I could not but take notice, when I translated it, of some favourite families to which he gives the victory and awards the prizes, in the person of his nero, at the funeral games which

narra

mihi quidem, si ejus judicium et elegantiam recte teneo, parum probabile videtur. Sapientior erat poeta, et rei poetica intelligentior, quam ut talem cogitationem in animum adimitteret. Nam præter quam quod Ence characterem non invenit, sed ab aliis jam traditum accepit, circumspiciendæ erant a poeta virtutes Eneæ ejusmodi, quæ in epico argu mento vim et splendorem haberent, et factorum, qua enarranda erant, caussas idoneas suppeditarent. Quod si ille studium suum ponere voluisset maxime in hoc, et Eneas Augusto assimularetur, quam multa et quam parum consentanea epic tioni, arguimento, operis characteri, temporum ra tioni, illaturus in carmen suum fuisset! "Eadem fere via carmen Roмrudy conditum a poeta visum jam olim erat R. Patri le Bossu, ut Romanos partim ad amplectendum et probandum præsentem rerum statum adducere, partim Augustum ad mod erationem ac clementiam adbortari, et a dominationis libidine et impotentia revocare voluerit. Sed nec huic consilio ulla ex parte respondet Eneidis sive argumentum sive tractatio: profugus ex urbe incensa Eneas novam sedem quærit, armis vim illatani propulsat, et sic porro; quid tandem his inest, quod ad imperandi artes ac virtutes spectet? Fab ulæ tamen Virgilianæ universe inesse, et in singu lis carminis partibus aut locis ac versibus occur. rere talia, quæ principibus pro salubribus præcep tis commendari possint, nemo neget; quin potius inter utilitates, quæ poetarum carininibus debentur, præcipue boc commemorandum est. Verum non propterea dici potest ac debet, in condendo carmine et in fabula deligenda et ordinanda tale præceptum propositum poetæ fuisse, cujus explicandi, caussa narrationem institueret. Narrare ille voluit ac debuit rem magnait et arduan et mirabilem. Quod narratio illa, et delectatio que inde accipitur, cum utilitate ad omnes hominum ordines, in primisque ad principum animos conjuncta est, hoc epicæ narrationi per se consentaneum est; ipsa enim rei natura ita fert, ut magnorum virorum facta magna et præclara sine summo ad hominum animos, mores ac virtutem, fructu exponi et narrari nequeant, multo magis si cum sententiarum splendore et orationis ornatu instituta sit narratio."Virg. a C. G. Heyne, Disquisit. i. de Carm. Epica.

was invested, and which made his person more sacred and inviolable, than even the tribunitial power. It was not therefore for nothing, that the most judicious of all poets made that office Vacant by the death of Panthûs in the Second Book of the Eneïs, for his hero to succeed in it, and consequently for Augustus to enjoy. I know not that any of the commentators have taken notice of that passage. If they have not, I am sure they ought; and if they have, I am not indebted to them for the observation. words of Virgil are very plain:

The

Sacra, suosque tibi commendat Troja penates. As for Augustus, or his uncle Julius, claiming by descent from Æneas, that title is already out of doors. Eneas succee led not, but was elected. Troy was fore doomed to fall for ever. Postquam res Asia Priamique evertere gentem Immeritam visum superis.-Eneis, lib. iii. v. 1. Augustus, it is true, had once resolved to rebuild that city, and there to make the seat of empire: but Horace writes an ode on purpose to deter him from that thought; declaring the place to be accursed, and that the gods would as often destroy it, as it should be raised.* Here upon the emperor laid aside a project so ungrate ful to the Roman people. But by this, my lord, we may conclude, that he had still his pedigree in his head, and had an itch of being thought a divine king, if his poets had not given him better counsel.

I will pass by many less material objections, for want of room to answer them: what follows next is of great importance, if the critics can make out their charge; for it is levelled at the manners which our poet gives his hero, and which are the same which were eminently seen in his Augustus. Those manners were, piety to the gods, and a dutiful affection to his father, love to his relations, care of his people, courage and conduct in the wars, gratitude to those who had obliged him, and justice in general to mankind.

Piety, as your lordship sees, takes place of all, as the chief part of his character; and the word in Latin is more full than it can possibly be expressed in any modern language; for there it comprehends not only devotion to the gods, but filial love, and tender affection to relations of all sorts. As instances of this, the deities of Troy, and his own Penates, are made the companions of his flight: they appear to him in his voyage, and advise him; and at last he replaces them in Italy, their native country. For his fa

The prophecy of Juno in the Third Ode of the Third Book.

VOL. IL-5

ther, he takes him on his back: he leads his little son: his wife follows him; but, losing his footsteps through fear or ignorance, he goes back into the midst of his enemies to find her, and leaves not his pursuit until her ghost appears, to forbid his farther search. I will say nothing of his duty to his father while he lived, his sorrow for his death, of the games instituted in honour of his memory, or seeking him, by his command, even after his death, in the Elysian fields. I will not mention his tenderness for his son, which everywhere is visible-of his raising a tomb for Polydorus, the obsequies for Misenus, his pious remembrance of Deïphobus, the funerals of his nurse, his grief for Pallas, and his revenge taken on his murderer, whom otherwise, by his natural compassion, he had forgiven: and then the poem had been left imperfect; for we could have had no certain prospect of his happiness, while the last obstacle to it was unremoved. Of the other parts which compose his character, as a king, or as a general, I need say nothing; the whole Eneis is one continued instance of some one or other of them; and where I find any thing of them taxed, it shall suffice me, as briefly as I can, to vindicate my divine master to your lordship, and by you to the reader. But herein Ségrais, in his admirable preface to his translation of the

neis, as the author of the Dauphin's Virgil justly calls it, has prevented me. Him I fol-. low, and what I borrow from him, am ready to acknowledge to him. For, impartially speaking, the French are as much better critics than the English, as they are worse poets. Thus we generally allow, that they better understand the management of a war than our islanders; but we know we are superior to them in the day of battle. They value themselves on their generals, we on our soldiers. But this is not the proper place to decide that question, if they make it one. I shall perhaps say as much of other nations, and their poets, excepting only Tasso; and hope to make my assertion good, which is but doing justice to my country; part of which honour will reflect on your lordship, whose thoughts are always just, your numbers harmonious, your words chosen, your expressions strong and manly, your verse flowing, and your turns as happy as they are easy. If you would set us more copies, your examples would make all precepts needless. In the mean time, that little you have written is owned, and that particularly by the poets, (who are a nation not over lavish of praise to their contemporaries,) as a principal ornament of our language; but the sweetest essences are always confined in the smallest glasses.

When I speak of your lordship, it is never a digression, and therefore I need beg no pardon