so unhappy in his former children, Macareus and Ca nace. Line 196. The realms of ocean, and the fields of air, Poetically speaking, the fields of air are under the command of Juno, and her vicegerent Æolus. Why then does Neptune call them his? I answer, Because, being god of the seas, Eolus could raise no tempest in the atmosphere above them without his leave. But why does Juno address to her own substitute? I answer, He had an immediate power over the winds, whom Juno desires to employ on her revenge. That power was absolute by land; which Virgil plainly insinuates: for, when Boreas and his brethren were let loose, he says at first, terras turbine perflant - then adds, Incubuere mari. To raise a tempest on the sea, was usurpation on the prerogative of Neptune, who had given him no leave, and therefore was enraged at his attempt. I may also add, that they who are in a passion, as Neptune then was, are apt to assume to themselves more than is properly their due. If, as you seem, the sister of the day, Or one at least of chaste Diana's train thus in the original O quam te memorem, virgo An Phabi soror, an nympharum sanguinis una? This is a family compliment, which Æneas here bestows on Venus. His father Anchises had used the very same to that goddess when he courted her. This appears by that very ancient Greek poem*, in which that amour * The Hymn on Venus. ED. is so beautifully described, and which is thought Homer's; though it seems to be written before his age. Line 979. Her princely guest Was next her side. This, I confess, is improperly translated, and according to the modern fashion of sitting at table. But the ancient custom of lying on beds had not been understood by the unlearned reader. ENEID II. The destruction of Veii is here shadowed under that of Troy. Livy, in his description of it, seems to have emulated in his prose, and almost equaled, the beauty of Virgil's verse. ENEID III. Verse 132. And children's children shall the crown sustain. Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis. Virgil translated this verse from Homer: Homer had it from Orpheus, and Orpheus from an ancient oracle of Apollo. On this account it is that Virgil immediately subjoins these words, Hæc Phœbus, &c. Eustathius takes notice, that the old poets were wont to take whole paragraphs from one another; which justifies our poet for what he borrows from Homer.. Bochartus, in his letter to Ségrais, mentions an oracle which he found in the fragments of an old Greek historian, the sense whereof is this in English, that, when the empire of the Priamida should be destroyed, the line of Anchises should succeed. Venus therefore, says the historian, was desirous to have a son by Anchises, though he was then in his decrepit age accordingly she had Æneas. After this, she sought occasion to ruin the race of Priam, and set on foot the intrigue of Alexander (or Paris) with Helena. She being ravished, Venus pretended still to favour the Trojans, lest they should restore Helen, in case they should be reduced to the last necessity. Whence it appears, that the controversy betwixt Juno and Venus was trivial account, but concerned the succession to a great empire. ENEID IV. Line 945. And must I die, she said, And unreveng'd? 'tis doubly to be dead! any terms, 'tis better than to live. on no This is certainly the sense of Virgil, on which I have paraphrased, to make it plain. His words are these: Moriemur inulta? Sed moriamur, ait; sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras. Servius makes an interrogation at the word sic; thus, sic? Sic juvat ire sub umbras; which Mr. Cowley justly censures but his own judgement may perhaps be questioned: for he would retrench the latter part of the verse, and leave it a hemistich-Sed moriamur, ait. That Virgil never intended to have left any hemistich, I have ́proved already in the preface. That this verse was filled up by him with these words, sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras, is very probable, if we consider the weight of them: for this procedure of Dido does not only contain that dira execratio, quæ nullo expiatur carmine* (as Horace observes in his Canidia), but, besides that, Virgil, who is full of allusions to history, under another name, describes the Decii devoting themselves to death this way, though in a * Read Nulla expiatur victimâ. dira detestatio Epod. v. 89. ED. better cause, in order to the destruction of the enemy. The reader, who will take the pains to consult Livy in his accurate description of those Decii thus devoting themselves, will find a great resemblance betwixt these two passages. And it is judiciously observed upon that verse, Nulla fides populis nec fœdera sunto, that Virgil uses, in the word sunto, a verbum juris, a form of speaking on solemn and religious occasions. Livy does. the like. Note also, that Dido puts herself into the habitus Gabinus, which was the girding herself round with one sleeve of her vest; which is also according to the Roman pontifical, in this dreadful ceremony, as Livy has observed; which is a farther confirmation of this conjecture. So that, upon the whole matter, Dido only doubts whether she should die before she had taken her revenge, which she rather wished: but, considering that this devoting herself was the most certain and infallible way of compassing her vengeance, she thus exclaims: Sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras! Hauriat hunc oculis ignem crudelis ab alto Those flames from far may the false Trojan view; which translation I take to be according to the sense of Virgil. I should have added a note on that former verse, Infelix Dido! nunc te fata impia tangunt which, in the edition of Heinsius, is thus printed, nunc te faeta impia tangunt? The word facta, instead of fata, is reasonably altered: for Virgil says afterwards, she died not by fate, nor by any deserved death-nec fato, me sage, ritâ nec morte, peribat, &c. When I translated that pasI doubted of the sense, and therefore omitted that hemistich, nunc te fata impia tangunt. But Heinsius is mistaken only in making an interrogation-point instead of a period. The words facta impia, I suppose, are genuine; for she had perjured herself in her second marriage, having firmly resolved, as she told her sister in the beginning of this Æneïd, never to love again, after the death of her first husband; and had confirmed this resolution by a curse on herself, if she should alter it Sed mihi vel tellus, optem, prius ima dehiscat, &c. ENEID V. A great part of this book is borrowed from Apollonius Rhodius; and the reader may observe the great judgement and distinction of our author in what he borrows from the ancients, by comparing them. I conceive the reason why he omits the horse-race in the funeral games, was because he shews Ascanius afterwards on horseback, with his troops of boys, and would not wear that subject thread-bare, which Statius, in the next age, described so happily. Virgil seems to me to have excelled Homer in those sports, and to have laboured them the more in honour of Octavius, his patron, who instituted the like games for perpetuating the memory of his uncle Julius; piety, as Virgil calls it, or dutifulness to parents, being a most popular virtue among the Romans. ENEÏD VI. Line 586. “ The next in place and punishment are they, Proxima sorte tenent mæsti loca, qui sibi letum |