most ironical manner; but the particular speech on which Madame Dacier founds her opinion, is a plain and fimple address to Eudicus, before he enters on his debate with the Sophift. It turns on the most fimple circumftance, the truth of which Eudicus could hardly be ignorant of, namely, the fentiments of his own father concerning the Poems of Homer. As these sentiments are fuch as I believe moft admirers of the ancient Bard have entertained on the point, in question, I perfectly agree with Madame Dacier in thinking that Socrates means to be literal and serious, when he fays to Eudicus, T8 T8 Tαтpos Aπyрavтov ηκεον οτι η Ιλιας κάλλιον ειη ποιημα ᾧ Ομηρω η η Οδυσσεια · τοσουτω δε καλw λιον οσω αμεινων Αχιλλευς Οδυσσεώς ειη. εκατερον γαρ των ποιημάτων το μεν εις Οδυσσεα εφη πεποιησθαι, το δ' εις Αχιλλεα. Plat. Hip. min. edit. Serrani, tom. i. pag. 363. "I have heard your father Apemantus fay, that the Iliad of Homer was a finer poem than his Odyssey, and as far surpassed it in excellence as the virtue of Achilles furpaffed the virtue of Ulyffes; for those two poems, he faid, were purpofely compofed in honour of those two heroes: the Odyffey, to fhew the virtues of Ulyffes; the Iliad, thofe of Achilles." Plato's Leffer Hippias, tranflated by Syden ham, page 13. Let us now return to Boffu; whofe opinion concerning the purpose of Homer we may venture to oppose, supported as it is by an ingenious interpretation of fome ambiguous paffages in the Poetics of Ariftotle ; and this oppofition may be grounded, not fo much on the fentence which I have quoted from Plato, as on the probable conduct of Epic compofition in the early ages of poetry. In fuch periods as produced the talents of Virgil and of Dryden, when all the arts of refined flattery were perfectly understood, we can easily conceive that they might both. be tempted to compliment the reigning monarch under the mask of such heroic names as history could fupply, and their genius accommodate to their purpose. We find accordingly, that the Roman Bard is fuppofed to have drawn a flattering portrait of his Emperor in the character of Areas, and that the English Poet has, with equal ingenuity, enwrapt. the diffolute Charles the Second in the Jewish robes of King David.. But in fo rude an age as we must admit that of Homer to have been; when the Poet was certainly more the child of Nature than of Art; when he had no history to confult, perhaps no patron to flatter, and no critics to to elude or obey; in fuch an age, may we not more naturally conjecture, that poetical compofition was neither laboured in its form, nor deep in its design? that, inftead of being the flow and fyftematic product of political reasoning, it was the quick and artlefs offspring of a strong and vivifying fancy, which, brooding over the tales of tradition, foon raised them into fuch life and beauty, as must fatisfy and enchant a warlike and popular audience, ever ready to liften with delight to the heroic feats of their ancestors. If the learned Boffu appears unfortunate in his system concerning the purpose of Homer, he may be thought ftill more fo in his attempt to analyze the Divinities of Virgil; for, to throw new light on the convention of the Gods, in the opening of the tenth Eneid, he very seriously informs us, that "* Venus is divine mercy, or the love of God towards virtuous men ; and Juno his justice." I cannot conclude these very free ftrictures on a celebrated author, without bearing a pleafing teftimony to the virtues of the man.-Boffu is allowed by the biographers of his country to have been remarkable for the mildest manners and most amiable disposition; totally free from that imperious and bigotted attachment to fpeculative opinions, which the science he cultivated is so apt to produce. He endeared himself to Boileau by a generous act of friendship, that led to an intimacy between them, which was diffolved only by the death of the former, in 1680. NOTE V. VERSE 244. Imputes to Virgil his own dark conceit.] As it requires much leisure to examine, and more skill to unravel an intricate hypothefis, twisted into a long and laboured chain of quotation and argument, the Differtation on the fixth Book of Virgil remained for fome time unrefuted. The public very quietly acquiefced in the strange pofition of its author, "That Æneas's adventure to the infernal fhades, is no other than a figurative description of his initiation into the Mysteries; and particularly a very exact one of the spectacles of the Eleufinian." At length a fuperior but anonymous Critic arofe, who, in one of the moft judicious * Book v. chap. I. and spirited effays that our nation has produced on a point of claffical literature, completely overturned this ill-founded edifice, and exposed the arrogance and futility of its affuming architect. The Effay I allude to is entitled "Critical Obfervations on the Sixth Book of the Æneid;" printed for Elmfly, 1770: and as this little publication is, I believe, no longer to be purchased, the curious reader may thank me for tranfcribing a few of its moft ftriking paffages. Having ridiculed, with great spirit and propriety, Warburton's general idea of the Æneid as a political inftitute, and his ill-fupported affertion, that both the ancient and modern poets afforded Virgil a pattern for introducing the Mysteries into this famous epifode, the author proceeds to examine how far the Critic's hypothesis of initiation may be fupported or overthrown by the text of the Poet. "It is," fays he, "from extrinsical circumstances that we may expect the discovery of Virgil's allegory. Every one of these circumstances perfuades 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 fingularity of the Cumæan fhores must be present to every traveller who has once feen them. To a fuperftitious mind, the thin crust, vaft cavities, fulphureous fteams, 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 furrounded it, when Virgil first came to Naples, were perfectly fuited to feed the fuperftition of the people *. It was generally be-lieved, that this deadly flood was the entrance of Hell; and an oracle was once established on its banks, which pretended, by magic rites, to call up the departed spirits. Æneas, who revolved a more daring enterprize, addresses himself to the priestess of thofe dark regions. Their converfation 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 fetting before him all the dangers of his rash undertaking.. Strabo, 1. v. p. 168. p. 267. edit. Weffeling. Sil, Ital. 1. xii. Diod. Siculus, 1. iv. -Facilis Facilis defcenfus Averni ; Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis : Sed revocare gradum, fuperafque evadere ad auras, "These particulars are abfolutely irreconcileable with the idea of initiation, but perfectly agreeable to that of a real descent. That every step and every inftant may lead us to the grave, is a melancholy truth. The Mysteries were only open at ftated times, a few days at most in the courfe 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 æquus amavit` Jupiter, aut ardens evexit ad æthera virtus, These heroes, as we learn from the Speech of Eneas, were Hercules, Orpheus, Caftor and Pollux, Thefeus, and Pirithous. Of all these antiquity believed, that, before their death, they had feen the habitations of the dead; nor indeed will any of the circumftances tally with a fuppofed initiation. The adventure of Eurydice, the alternate life of the Brothers, and the forcible intrufion of Alcides, Thefeus, and Pirithous, would mock the endeavours of the most fubtle 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 Ipfius a folio regis, traxitque trementem ‡. was a wild imagination of the Greeks §; but it was the duty of ancient Poets to adopt and embellish these popular traditions; and it is the interest of every man of taste to acquiefce in their poetical fictions.” Virgil has borrowed, as ufual, 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 durft venture to point out the most striking beauties of the fixth Book, I fhould perhaps observe, 1. That after accompanying the hero through the filent 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 fprings from the love of virtue, the just empire of Minos, in which the apparent irregularities of the prefent fyftem are corrected; where the patriot who died for his country is happy, and the tyrant who oppreffed it is miferable. 3. As we intereft ourselves in the hero's fortunes, we share his feelings :-the melancholy Palinurus, the wretched Deiphobus, the indignant Dido, the Græcian kings, who tremble at his prefence, and the venerable Anchifes, who embraces his pious fon, and displays to his fight the future glories of his race: all these objects affect us with a variety of pleafing fenfations. "Let us for a moment obey the mandate of our great Critic, and confider these aweful scenes as a mimic fhew, exhibited in the Temple of Ceres, by the contrivance of the priest, or, if he pleases, of the legislaWhatever was animated (I appeal to every reader of taste) whatever was terrible, or whatever was pathetic, evaporates into lifeless allegory. tor. Tenuem fine viribus umbram. Dat fine mente fonum, greffufque effingit euntis. The end of philofophy is truth; the end of poetry is pleasure. I willingly adopt any interpretation which adds new beauties to the original; I affift in perfuading myself that it is juft, and could almost fhew the fame indulgence to the Critic's as to the Poet's fiction. But should a grave Doctor lay out fourfcore pages in explaining away the fense and spirit of Virgil, I fhould have every inducement to believe that Virgil's foul was very different from the Doctor's." Having fhewn, in this spirited manner, how far the hypothefis of the Critic is inconfiftent with particular paffages, and with the general character of the Poet, the Effayift proceeds to alledge "two fimple S reafons, |