Mæcenas, and Pollio, whose fortune depended on his own, and would have disappeared among an aristocracy of nobles, at discord among themselves, but all combined to overwhelm every fresh aspirant.

LXXX. Several fortunate circumstances, the debauchery of Antony, the weakness of Lepidus, the credulity of Cicero, combined to effect this favourable disposition towards him. The variety of objects entirely prevents me from depicting this subtle government, the chains worn without their weight being perceived, the prince confounded with the citizens, the senate respected even by its master.* Let us then choose a single trait.

Augustus, when master of the revenues of the empire and the riches of the world, always distinguished his own private property from the public treasure. Thus at a small sacrifice he both made his moderation apparent, which left his heirs much less wealth than those of many of his subjects,† and his love to his country, which abandoned to the service of the state two entire patrimonies, and an immense amount of wealth derived from the legacies of his deceased friends.

LXXXI. An ordinary degree of penetration is sufficient to discern when an action is at once a cause and an effect. In the moral world this is often the case; or rather it very seldom happens that there are any which do not partake of the nature of both.

The corruption existing in every order of Roman society was produced by the extent of their dominion, and produced the grandeur of the republic.§

But it requires an extraordinary judgment to discern whether two things, which always exist together, and appear intimately connected, do not reciprocally owe their origin to each other.

LXXXII. It is said that the sciences are produced from luxury, and that a civilised people will always be vicious. To this I cannot agree. The sciences are not the offspring of luxury; but both of these have their origin in industry. In the earliest state of the arts, they satisfy the first wants of mankind; when brought to perfection, they procure him new sources of gratification, from the Minerva's shield of Vitellius || to the philosophical discourses of Cicero.

I am impatiently looking for the sequel of the dissertations on this subject, promised us by the Abbé de la Blétérie. The system of Augustus's government, which is so often misunderstood, will there appear clearly depicted, down to its most minute ramifications. The author's reasonings possess great ingenuity and a beautiful freedom, his discussions are not dry, and his expressions have all the graces of a clear and elegant style. Perhaps, a Descartes in history, he reasons a little too much à priori, and establishes his conclusions more on particular authorities than on general inductions; but this is the error of a great genius.

+ After every deduction made of his legacies to the people and to the soldiers, Augustus left Tiberius and Livia only milles quingentes, £1,250,000. The augur Lentulus, who died during his reign, possessed quater millies, £3,333,333. See Suetonius, lib. ii. cap. 101; Seneca de Beneficiis, lib. ii.

Quaterdecies millies, £11,666,666. See Suetonius, lib. ii. cap. 101; and the An

cyran marble.

§ Montesquieu sur la Grandeur des Romains. I make a distinction between the greatness of the Roman dominion and that of the republic; the one consisted in the number of its provinces, the other in that of the citizens.

Vitellius sent galleys as far as Hercules' Pillars to seek for the rarest fish, with

But in proportion as manners are corrupted by luxury, so much are they softened by science; like the Prayers in Homer, which continually traverse the earth, following after Injustice, to soften the fury of that cruel goddess.*

Such are a few reflections, which to me have appeared well grounded, on the various uses of literature. Happy shall I be if I can impart a taste for it. I should have too high an opinion of myself, if I did not perceive the defects of this essay; and I should entertain too low an one, did I not hope that, in a more mature age, and with more extensive knowledge, I shall find myself better qualified to supply them. It may perhaps be said that these reflections are true, but hackneyed; or that they are new, but paradoxical. What author is fond of criticisms? Nevertheless, the former opinion will displease me the least. The good of the art is much dearer to me than the glory of the artist.

CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

DESIGN OF THE SIXTH BOOK OF THE ÆNEID. THE allegorical interpretation which the Bishop of Gloucester has given of the sixth book of the Eneid, 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 alleged, 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 chase, 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 show that Æneas'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."+ 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 ob serving a remote object through the medium of a glimmering and doubtful light:

"Ibant obscuri, solâ sub nocte, per umbram."

which he filled this monstrous dish. If we may believe Dr. Arbuthnot, it cost £765,625. Suetonius in Vitellio, cap. 13; Arbuthnot's Tables, p. 138.

* Μετοπισθ 'Ατης ἀλεγουσι κιούσαι.

Homer's Iliad, lib. ix. ver. 500.

+ 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.

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 Eneid. 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 ancient lawgivers for the support and benefit of society. The mysteries themselves were a school of morality and religion, in which the vanity of polytheism,* 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 lawgiver must be initiated, as the ancient 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 unbiassed mind! Was the civil magistrate the mover of the whole machine; the sole contriver, or at least the sole support of religion? Were ancient 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 new-made 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 nearly eighteen hundred years at Eleusist in its primeval 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 ancient world. Inachus carried ⚫ the mysteries into Greece, Zoroaster into Persia, &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 ancient world, eighteen centuries, and four hundred authors genuine and apocryphal, § would, under

* At least of the vulgar polytheism, by revealing that the dii majorum gentium had been mere mortals.

+ From their institution, 1399 years before the Christian era, (Marm. Arundel. Ep. 14) till their suppression, towards the end of the fourth century.

Though I hate to be positive, yet I would almost venture to affirm, that Zoroaster's connexion with Egypt is nowhere to be found, except in the D. L.

§ 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 Porphyry, 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

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 ancient, 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 among several hundred others.* 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 discover only the ancient alliance between the avarice of the priests 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 connexion subsisted between them:† both were preceded and accompanied with fasts, sacrifices, and lustrations; with mystic sights and preternatural sounds: but the most essential preparations 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. 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 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 convenience of succeeding ages. The fragment 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 (lib. 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. * See Vandale de Oraculis, p. 559. be known of oracles.

rowed his quotations.

That valuable book contains whatever can now I have borrowed his facts; and could with great ease have bor

+ 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." See Diogen. Laert. vi. 39, and Menag. ad loc.

whatever had the least connexion 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, have 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 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.† 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 was used in the celebration of the mysteries, to prove the unity of the first cause, and that an ancient hymn § 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 Æneas is the lawgiver of Virgil's republic, he has no more business with the mysteries

"Les sectes

* I shall sum them up in a curious passage of the celebrated Freret. philosophiques cherchaient à déviner le dogme caché sous le voile des ceremonies; et tachaient de le ramener chacune à leur doctrine. Dans l'hypothèse des Epicuriens, adoptée de nos jours par MM. Le Clerc et Warburton," (Le Clerc adopted it in the year 1687; Mr. Warburton invented it in the year 1738,) "tout ce qu'on révélait aux adeptes après tant de préparatifs et d'épreuves, c'est que les dieux adorés du vulgaire, avaient été des hommes, &c. Les Stoiciens et les Hylozoistes supposaient qu'on enseignait aux initiés, qu'il n'y avait d'autres dieux que les élémens et les parties de l'univers materiel. Enfin, suivant les nouveaux Platoniciens, ces symboles servaient à couvrir les dogmes d'une théologie et d'une philosophie sublimes, enseignées autrefois par les Egyptiens et les Chaldéens." M. Freret inclines, though with great diffidence, to the last opinion. Mém. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, &c. tom. xxi. p. 12, Hist.

Je ne suis si convaincu de nôtre ignorance par les choses qui sont, et dont la raison nous est inconnue, que par celles qui ne sont point et dont nous trouvons la raison. Œuvres de Fontenelle, tom. xi. p. 229.

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.

§ Orpheus's Hymn to Musæus, quoted by Justin Martyr, and several other fathers, but rejected as spurious by Cudworth (Intellectual System, p. 300), by Le Clerc (Hist. Eccl. p. 692), and by Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical Hist. vol. i. p. 199). The first of these, the immortal Cudworth, is often celebrated by the Bishop of Gloucester; Le Clerc'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 choose to confess that their objections are unanswerable, will allow that they deserve to be answered.