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VIRGIL.

From the writings of Homer, we now turn to those of his illustrious rival. The Æneid was not, like the Iliad and Odyssey, produced in a barbarous age, but in one of high comparative civilization and refinement. Before making any direct observations upon this poem, it may be proper to consider some circumstances of the times in which it was produced.

Letters, at Rome, were not of native growth. That city, become the mistress of the world, and drawing from every different province the luxuries it afforded, imported from Greece the elegant luxuries of science and literature. Hence her greatest poets are to be considered as imitators of Grecian models. They were not, however, tame or slavish imitators. Though frequently bringing forward the same ideas, they express them in a manner peculiar to themselves. If they yield to their masters in invention, in simplicity, in fancy, they surpass them in. dignity and correctness.

These observations apply, in a peculiar manner, to the Æneid. Perhaps no work ever united such exalted genius, with so small a portion of originality. Virgil seems to have aimed at transfusing into his own language the beauties of Homer, separated from his faults; and he has in part succeeded. He has retrenched his languors, his repetitions, his tiresome digressions; and, to his lofty and irregular flights, has substituted an uniform and well supported majesty. It cannot be said, that he has discovered stronger pathetic powers; but he has certainly exerted them much oftener.

In regard to manners, the Æneid is far from being of equal value. Virgil was naturally disposed, by historical truth, as well as by his devotion to Homer, to make these the same as in the Iliad and Odyssey. But, to the polished age for which he wrote, the coarseness and ferocity of those times would have been extremely disgusting. These, therefore, he was frequently obliged to soften ; so that his work exhibits not the manners of any one age, but of several blended together.

In general, his representations are not copied, either from personal observation, or from any source of information, of which we are not equally possessed. In an historical view, therefore, the Eneid has little or no claim to regard. Its interest must rest entirely on its poetical merit; which forms, it must be owned, a very ample foundation.

The critics have been at great pains to extract a moral out of Virgil as well as Homer; not, in my opinion, with much better success. That which they have fixed upon, so far as I recollect, is the beneficial effects of piety to the gods. But, unless from his own frequent declarations, we could hard-ly discover Æneas to possess this virtue in any peculiar degree. Nor does it appear to have contributed much to the advancement of his fortunes. The favour which he enjoyed above, is evidently owing chiefly to his high extraction; and the protection of Jupiter granted, not to his own merit, but to the beauty and tears of a favourite daughter. Upon the whole, we may safely conclude, that both Homer and Virgil had this object

very little, if at all, in view. This, indeed, if the observations formerly made on that subject be just, can hardly be considered as a blemish in their writings.

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But if Virgil has advanced no claim to merit in these two respects, he has aimed at making his poem answer the third description of fictitious productions. Æneas was evi-dently designed for a perfect character. The view of the poet in this was, perhaps, not so much to promote the moral improvement of his readers, as to give an additional ornament to his poem. Whatever it was, has been by no means successful. He seems. to have considered perfection too much as a negative quality, and as, connected with an insensible and unimpassioned turn of mind. Did virtue consist merely in doing no harm, Æneas might have some claim to it. In so far as it requires just feeling and active exertion, he does not seem to have very much. The drawing of characters, indeed, is generally allowed to be the point in which Virgil has most completely failed. Considering the high powers which, in other respects, he has displayed, we can hardly

suppose this to have proceeded from want of genius. Perhaps the same circumstances which have been noticed as affecting the manners of the poem, may have operated here also. Virgil copied not from nature, but from Homer. The characters, however, of that writer would have ill suited the refined taste which prevailed in his time. He preserved, therefore, the mere skeleton of Homer's characters, without any attempt at filling it up. This is extremely apt to be the case, where fiction is built, in this manner, upon other fictions. The filial piety, however, of Eneas, forms one trait, which relieves a little the insipid uniformity of his character.

One circumstance, both in Homer and Virgil, which seems deserving of notice, is the frequent introduction of supernatural beings in a visible and bodily form. There is no action of any importance in which these. do not perform a conspicuous part. Their favour seems to be regarded as an higher distinction than any personal merit whatever *.

* See Note [C at the end of the volume.

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