him to provide for battle the next day, and foretell him good success: so that this episodical machine is properly a part of the great poem; for, besides what I have said, they push on his navy with celestial vigour, that it might reach the port more speedily, and take the enemy more unprovided to resist the landing: whereas the machine relating to Camilla is only ornamental; for it has no effect, which I can find, but to please the reader, who is concerned that her death should be revenged. Lines 241, 242. Now, sacred sisters, open all your spring! The poet here begins to tell the names of the Tuscan captains who followed Æneas to the war: and I observe him to be very particular in the description of their persons, and not forgetful of their manners; exact also in the relation of the numbers which each of them command. I doubt not but, as, in the fifth book, he gave us the names of the champions who contended for the several prizes, that he might oblige many of the most ancient Roman families, their descendants—and as, in the seventh book, he mustered the auxiliary forces of the Latins on the same account- so here he gratifies his Tuscan friends with the like remembrance of their ancestors, and, above the rest, Mæcenas, his great patron, who, being of a royal family in Etruria, was probably represented under one of the names here mentioned, then known among the Romans, though, at so great a distance, unknown to us. And, for his sake chiefly, as I guess, he makes Æneas (by whom he always means Augustus) to seek for aid in the country of Mæcenas, thereby to endear his protector to his emperor, as if there had been a former friendship betwixt their lines. And who knows, but Mæcenas might pretend that the Cilnian family was derived from Tarchon, the chief commander of the Tuscans? Line 662. Nor I, his mighty sire, could ward the blow. I have mentioned this passage in my preface to the Eneïs, to prove that Fate was superior to the gods, and that Jove could neither defer nor alter its decrees. Sir Robert Howard has since been pleased to send me the concurrent testimony of Ovid: it is in the last book of his Metamorphoses, where Venus complains that her descendant, Julius Cæsar, was in danger of being murdered by Brutus and Cassius, at the head of the commonwealth-faction, and desires [the gods] to prevent that barbarous assassination, They are moved to compassion they are concerned for Cæsar; but the poet plainly tells us, that it was not in their power to change destiny. All they could do, was to testify their sorrow for his approaching death, by fore-shewing it with signs and prodigies, as appears by the following lines Talia necquidquam toto Venus anxia cælo Verba jacit; superosque movet: qui rumpere quamquam Then she addresses to her father Jupiter, hoping aid from him, because he was thought omnipotent. But he, it seems, could do as little as the rest; for he answers thus: sola insuperabile Fatum, Nata, movere paras? Intres licet ipsa sororum Ex ære et solido rerum tabularia ferro, Quæ neque concursum cæli, neque fulminis iram, Jupiter, you see, is only library-keeper, or custos rotulorum, to the Fates: for he offers his daughter a cast of his office, to give her a sight of their decrees, which the inferior gods were not permitted to read without his leave. This agrees with what I have said already in the preface; that they, not having seen the records, might believe they were his own hand-writing, and consequently at his disposing, either to blot out or alter, as he saw convenient. And of this opinion was Juno in those words, tua, qui potes, orsa reflectas. Now the abode of those Destinies being in hell, we cannot wonder why the swearing by Styx was an inviolable oath amongst the gods of heaven, and that Jupiter himself should fear to be accused of forgery by the Fates, if he altered any thing in their decrees: Chaos, Night, and Erebus, being the most ancient of the deities, and instituting those fundamental laws, by which he was afterwards to govern. Hesiod gives us the genealogy of the gods; and I think I may safely infer the rest. I will only add, that Homer was more a fatalist than Virgil: for it has been observed that the word Tux, or Fortune, is not to be found in his two poems; but, instead of it, always Μοιρα. ENEID XII. Lines 100, 101, 102. At this, a flood of tears Lavinia shed; A crimson blush her beauteous face o'erspread, Amata, ever partial to the cause of Turnus, had just before desired him, with all manner of earnestness, not to engage his rival in single fight; which was his present resolution. Virgil, though (in favour of his hero) he never tells us directly that Lavinia preferred Turnus to Eneas, yet has insinuated this preference twice before. For mark, in the seventh Eneïd, she left her father (who had promised her to Æneas without asking her consent), and followed her mother into the woods, with a troop of Bacchanals, where Amata sung the marriagesong, in the name of Turnus; which if she had disliked, she might have opposed. Then, in the eleventh Æneïd, when her mother went to the temple of Pallas, to invoke her aid against Eneas, whom she calls by no better name than Phrygius prædo, Lavinia sits by her in the same chair or litter, juxtaque comes Lavinia virgo,―oculos dejecta decoros. What greater sign of love, than fear and concernment for the lover? In the lines which I have quoted, she not only sheds tears, but changes colour. She had been bred up with Turnus; and Æneas was wholly a stranger to her. Turnus, in probability, was her first love, and favoured by her mother, who had the ascendant over her father. But I am much deceived, if (besides what I have said) there be not a secret satire against the sex, which is lurking under this description of Virgil, who seldom speaks well of women—better indeed of Camilla, than any other for he commends her beauty and valour- because he would concern the reader for her death. But valour is no very proper praise for woman-kind; and beauty is common to the sex. He says also somewhat of Andromache, but transiently and his Venus is a better mother than a wife; for she owns to Vulcan she had a son by another man. The rest are Junos, Dianas, Didos, Amatas, two mad prophetesses, three Harpies on earth, and as many Furies under ground. This fable of Lavinia includes a secret moral; that women, in their choice of husbands, prefer the younger of their suitors to the elder; are insensible of merit, fond of handsomeness, and, generally speaking, rather hurried away by their appetite, than governed by their reason, Lines 808, 809. Sea-born Messapus, with Atinas, heads The Latin squadrons, and to battle leads. The poet had said, in the preceding lines, that Mnestheus, Serestus, and Asylas, led on the Trojans, the Tuscans, and the Arcadians: but none of the printed copies, which I have seen, mention any leader of the Rutulians and Latins, but Messapus the son of Neptune. Ruæus takes notice of this passage, and seems to wonder at it; but gives no reason, why Messapus is alone without a coadjutor. The four verses of Virgil run thus: Tota adeo conversæ acies, omnesque Latini, Omnes Dardanida; Mnestheus, acerque Serestus, I doubt not but the third line was originally thus, for the two names of Asylas and Atinas are so like, that one might easily be mistaken for the other by the transcribers. And to fortify this opinion, we find afterward, in the relation of Saces to Turuus, that Atinas is joined with Messapus. Soli, pro portis, Messapus et acer Atinas Sustentant aciem |