University of Virginia Library

Ver. 1. Fields.] The subjects of the four following books of Georgics are particularly specified in these first four lines, Corn and Ploughing are the subject of the first, Vines of the second, Cattle of the third, and Bees of the last. By seges Virgil generally means the field. Quo sidere is very poetical for quo tempore. Mr. Dryden says only when to turn, &c. I apply experientia to the bees after Grimoaldus and Dr. Trapp, as more poetical than the other meaning, and as suitable to Virgil's manner of ascribing human qualities to these insects. I wonder, says Mr. Holdsworth, whence Seneca came to speak so lightly of Virgil's exactness in his Georgics: but this I am sure of, that the more I have look'd into the manner of agriculture used at present in Italy, the more occasion I have had to admire the justice and force of his expressions, and his exactness even in the minutest particulars. Holdsworth.

7. Lights of the world.] Clarissima mundi lumina cannot be put in apposition or joined with Bacchus et alma Ceres; Virgil first invokes the sun and moon, and then Bacchus.— Varro's invocation proceeds in the same manner.

11. Chaonian mast.] The famous grove of Dodona was in Epirus or Chaonia;

18. Snow white heifers feeds.] Aristaeus is here invoked, who taught the arts of curdling milk and cultivating olive trees. Triptolemus the son of Celeus was the inventor of the plough. In a contention between Neptune and Minerva about naming Athens, Neptune struck the earth with his trident, and produced a horse, and Pallas an olive tree.

19. Lycaeus' grove.] Lycaeus and Maenalus were two mountains in Arcadia, sacred to Pan.

25. Sylvanus.] Medals represent Sylvanus bearing a young cypress tree torn up by the roots. Neither Mr. Dryden nor Mr. Benson seem apprehensive of this allusion, which is very picturesque.

31. And thou.] The poet here begins a fine address to Augustus, asking him whether he would chuse to be the god of earth, sea, or heaven. Catrou ingeniously imagines this address was added by Virgil the year before his death, when several other passages were likewise inserted; for he says Augustus was not thus highly honoured till after his return from the conquest of Egypt.

46. Scorpius.] Libra, or the Balance, was originally represented as held up by Scorpius, who extended his claws for that purpose out of his own proper dominions; and that, under Augustus, or a little after his death, they made Scorpius contract his claws, and introduced a new personage (most probably Augustus himself) to hold the Balance. On the Farnese globe it is held by Scorpius; (which by the way, may perhaps shew that work to have been previous to the Augustan age:) in several of the gems and medals on which we have the signs of the zodiac, it is held by a man. This is said to be Augustus. It was a very common thing among the Roman poets to compliment their emperors with a place among the constellations; and perhaps the Roman astronomers took the hint of placing Augustus there, and that in this very situation, from Virgil's compliment of this kind to the emperor. To say the truth, there could scarce have been a place or employment, better chosen for Augustus. The astronomers originally were at a loss how to have the Balance supported: they were obliged, for this purpose, to make Scorpius take up the space of two signs in the zodiac; which was quite irregular: and to be sure they would be ready to lay hold of any fair occasion of reducing to his due bounds again. On the other hand, it was quite as proper for Augustus, as it was improper for Scorpius, to hold it: for beside its being a compliment to him for his justice, or for his holding the balance of the affairs of the world, (if they talked of princes then, in the style we have been so much used to of late) Libra was the very sign that was said to preside over Italy; and so Augustus in holding that, would be supposed to be the guardian angel of his country after his decease, as he had been so formally declared to be the father and protector of it in his life-time. Upon the whole, I do not see how any thought of this kind could have been carried on with more propriety, than this seems to have been, by the admirers or flatterers of that emperor. Polymetis, Dialogue 11. Page 170.

57. In earliest spring.] The writers of agriculture, says Dr. Martyn, did not confine themselves to the computation of astrologers; but dated their spring from the end of the frosty weather. Possunt igitur ac idibus Januariis, ut principem mensem Romani anni observet, auspicari culturarum officia. Columella.

63. Which twice the sun, and twice.] The meaning is, that a field which has lain still two years together, instead of one (which last is the common method) will bear a much greater crop. Benson.

74. Castor.] 'Tis a vulgar mistake that the testicles of the beaver contain the castor; for 'tis taken from some odoriferous glands about the groin of this animal. Virosa in this place does not mean poisonous, but efficacious or powerful: So likewise Eclogue 8. Martyn.

87. There, lest the weeds.] Virgil speaks of the seasons of ploughing strong and light ground. The first, says he, must be ploughed early in the spring, and lie all summer; and the other lightly in autumn: or else the strong ground will run all to weeds, and the light ground will have all its juices exhausted. Benson.

92. The lupin shook.] The tristis lupinus is not our lupin, but that seed which they now in Italy lay asoak so long in water, to get rid of its bitterness, and even sell it so in their streets. 'Tis but a very insipid thing at best. The faselus of the Romans is our lupin. Holdsworth.

95. Parcht are the lands.] That flax, oats, and poppies, dry and impoverish the soil, we have the concurrent testimony of Columella, Paladius, and Pliny. The Romans cultivated poppies, not our common scarlet ones, but our garden poppy. See Martyn.

102. To burn the barren glebe.] Virgil, says Mr. Benson (but he seems to be mistaken) speaks of two different things, of burning the soil itself before the ground is ploughed, and of burning the stubble after the corn is taken off from arable land. The rapidity of saepe levem stipulam crepitantibus urere flammis, expresses the crackling and swiftness of the flame.

103. While the light stubble.] They still use the method so much recommended by Virgil (Geo. I. 84 to 93) of burning the stubble, especially in the more barren fields, in most parts of Italy; and about Rome in particular, where there is so much bad ground. The smoke is very troublesome when they do it; and there had been so many complaints made of it to Clement XI, that he had resolved to forbid that practice. When the order was laid before that pope, to be signed by him; a cardinal (who happened to be with his holiness) spoke much of the use of it; shewed him this passage in Virgil; and the pope on reading it, changed his mind, and rejected the order. Holdsworth.

113. Cold should scorch.] Burning applied to cold is not merely a poetical expression; but we find it made use of by the philosophers. Aristotle says, that cold is accidentally an active body, and is sometimes said to burn and warm, not in the same manner as heat, but because it condenses or constrains the heat by surrounding it. Martyn.

116. Who ploughs across.] What the poet speaks of here (says Mr. Benson) retains the Roman name to this day in many parts of England, and is called, sowing upon the back; that is, sowing stiff ground after once ploughing. Now, says Virgil, he that draws a harrow or hurdle over his ground before he sows it, multum juvat arva, for this fills up the chinks; which otherwise would bury the corn; but then, says he, Ceres always looks kindly on him, who ploughs his ground across again. Benson.

119. And Ceres.] Virgil in his Georgics gives us an idea of Ceres as regarding the laborious husbandman from heaven, and blessing the work of his hand with success. There is a picture like this in the famous old manuscript of Virgil in the Vatican; and Lucretius has a strong description of another deity, exactly in the same attitude, though with a very different regard.

This image of Ceres puts one in mind of that beautiful one in the psalms—Righteousness (a person) hath looked down from heaven.

121. Solstice.] Solstice, when used alone, is always used for the summer solstice by the ancients. Holdsworth.

125. And Gargarus.] This is one of those figures that raise the style of the Georgics, and make it so majestic.

133. Rills.] When the Persians were masters of Asia, they permitted those who conveyed a spring to any place, which had not been watered before, to enjoy the benefit for five generations; and as a number of rivulets flowed from mount Taurus, they spared no expence in directing the course of their streams. At this day, without knowing how they came thither, they are found in the fields and gardens, Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, Vol. 1. p. 325.

139. Feeds down.] It is a common practice among the farmers at present, when the corn is too rank and luxuriant, to turn in their sheep and feed it down.

149. Goose.] Virgil speaks of the geese as a very troublesome bird, and very pernicious to the corn. They are still so in flocks, in the Campania Felice, the country which Virgil had chiefly in his eye when he wrote his Georgics. Holdsworth.

153. With cares he rous'd.] This account of the providential usefulness of some seeming evils, is not only beautifully poetical, but strictly philosophical. Want is the origin of arts: Infirmities and weaknesses are the cause and cement of human society. If man were perfect and self-sufficient, all the efforts of industry would be useless. A dead calm would reign over all the species.

Says the great moral poet in his Essay on Man. And this doctrine is strongly illustrated throughout that whole system.

189. From forest oaks.] This is another instance of Virgil's poetical manner of telling plain things; instead of saying, You will have no crop; You will be forc'd, says he, to go into the wild forests, as man used to do, before he was civilized, for food.

192. Plough.] I have a drawing of an antique plough, from a brass figure in the jesuits college at Rome. I don't know the exact time or place in which it was made, but every part of it seems to me to have something to answer it in Virgil's description. The figure of it is below: and I take all the bending part of the wood, or the plough tail (mark'd a) to be what Virgil calls buris; b the pole or temo; c the two pieces that go over the necks of the oxen; which he calls aures; d the plough-share, dentale; e the two clouts of iron to fasten the plough-share, dorsa; and f the handle of the plough, or stiva.

I have borrow'd a few lines from Mr. Benson's translation of this passage.

195. Bacchus' flying sail.] The persons who were initiated into any of the ancient mysteries, were to be particularly good; they looked upon themselves as separated from the vulgar of mankind, and dedicated to a life of singular virtue and piety. This may be the reason that the fan or van, the mystica vannus Iacchi, was used in initiations: The instrument that separates the wheat from the chaff being as proper an emblem as can well be, of setting apart the good and virtuous from the wicked or useless part of mankind.

In the drawings of the ancient paintings by Bellori, there are two that seem to relate to initiations; and each of them has the vannus in it. In one of them, the person that is initiating, stands in a devout posture, and with a veil on, the old mark of devotion; while two that were formerly initiated hold the van over his head. In the other there is a person holding a van, with a young infant in it. The latter may signify much the same with the scripture expression, entering into a state of virtue “as a little child.” Mark x. 15. The van itself puts one in mind of another text relating to a particular purity of life, and the separation of the good from the bad. “Whose fan is in hand, and he shall thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Luke iii. 17.

208. Floor.] Aream esse oportet—solidâ terrâ pavitam, maximè siest argilla, ne aestû paeminosa, in rimis ejus grana delitescant, et recipiant aquam, et ostia aperiant muribus & formicis. Itaque amurcâ solent perfundere, ea enim herbarum est inimica & formicarum, & talparum venenum. Thus says Varro, from whom 'tis plain Virgil borrow'd this precept, as he has done many others.

240. The torrent.] It is remarkable in Virgil, that he frequently joins in the same sentence the complete and perfect present with the extended and passing present; which proves that he considered the two, as belonging to the same species of time; and therefore naturally formed to co-incide with each other.

In the same manner he joins the same two modifications of time in the past; that is to say, the complete and perfect with the extended and passing.

248. Winter's.] Bruma was not used by the ancients for the whole winter; but for one day only of it, the shortest day, or the winter solstice. Holdsworth.

248. First.] The word extremus in Latin has two very different significations; it may relate to the beginning, as well as the end of any thing; or to the nearest part of it, as well as that farthest off. Thus, if one was to say, in extremo ponte, it may mean the hither extremity or end of the bridge; and when Virgil says his countrymen should work

It must be understood of the beginning of that rainy season, which was itself unfit for work; this took up the latter half of December, which was therefore turned all into holy-days, or the Saturnalia, in which the slaves that were at other times kept hard to work, were indulged in particular liberties, and spent all the time in mirth and joviality.

257. His backward-rising star.] By averso astro, 'tis most probable Virgil means the Bull; for that constellation rises with his hinder parts upwards. Throughout Manilius the Bull is called astrum aversum. Some read adversum; but that is scarce reconcileable to the sense of this passage.

260. Pleiades.] The heliacal setting of these stars Eoae Atlantides is pointed out by the word abscondantur. Whereever Virgil speaks of the setting of any stars in general, and without any such restriction, it is always to be understood of their natural setting. Holdsworth.

272. Five zones.] Under the torrid or burning zone lies that part of the earth which is contained between the two tropics. This was thought by the ancients to be uninhabitable, because of the excessive heat: but later discoveries have shewn it to be inhabited by many great nations. It contains a great part of Asia, Africa, and South America. Under the two frigid or cold zones lie those parts of the earth, which are included within the two polar circles, which are so cold, being at a great distance from the sun, as to be scarce habitable. Within the artic circle, near the north pole, are contained Nova Zembla, Lapland, Groenland, &c. within the antartic circle, near the south pole, no land as yet has been discovered; tho' the great quantities of ice found there make it probable, that there is more land near the south than the north pole. Under the two temperate zones are contained those parts of the globe which lie between the tropics and polar circles. The temperate zone, between the artic circle and the tropic of Cancer, contains the greatest part of Europe and Asia, part of Africa, and almost all North America. That between the antartic circle and the tropic of Capricorn, contains part of South America, or the Antipodes. See Martyn.

281. Roll the signs.] Here the poet describes the zodiac, which is a broad belt spreading about five or six degrees on each side of the ecliptic line, and contains the twelve constellations or signs. They are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces. The ecliptic line cuts the equinoctial obliquely in two opposite points, whence the poet calls the zodiac obliquus signorum ordo. It traverses the whole torrid zone, but neither of the temperate zones; so that, per ambas, must mean between, not thro' them. Thus presently after, speaking of the Dragon, he says it twines, per duas arctos: now that constellation cannot be said to twine thro' the two Bears, but between them. The zodiac is the annual path of the sun, thro' each sign of which he passes in about the space of a month. He is said to be in one of those signs, when he appears in that part of the heavens, where those stars are, of which the sign is composed. Martyn.

290. The Bears] Mr. Benson thinks this line in the original spurious, and omits it as such.

313. Mark.] How came the Romans not to find out the art of printing many ages ago? The Caesars impressed their whole names on grants and letters, and this practice was so common a one, that even the shepherds impressed their names on their cattle.

337. Ossa on Pelion.]

To represent the giants piling up the mountains on each other,

The verse cannot be read without making pauses; so judiciously are the hiatus's contrived. Hesiod has most nobly described this battle of the giants. The learned Mr. Jortin thinks the ασπις to be his. See Milton's battle of the angels, Book 6, and compare it with Hesiod.

357. Corn] The Romans did not thrash or winnow their corn: in the heat of the day, as soon as it was reaped, they laid it on a floor made on purpose, in the middle of the field, and then they drove horses or mules round about it, till they trod all the grain out.

This was the common practice too all over the east; and that humane text of scripture, “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn,” is a plain allusion to it.

395. Great Jove himself pavilion'd.] This description is very sublime. While the winds are roaring, the rains descending, the rivers overflowing, he nobly introduces Jupiter himself surrounded with a thick cloud, and from thence darting his thunderbolts, and splitting the loftiest mountains, all the earth trembling and astonished with fear and dread. I follow Mr. Benson and Masvicius, in reading plangit (instead of plangunt) because it adds a poetical and bold image of Jupiter's striking the woods and shores. This description, fine as it is, is excelled by the storm in the 18th psalm. God is described flying upon the wings of the wind—“He made darkness his secret place, his pavilion round about him, with dark water and thick clouds to cover him.—The springs of waters were seen, and the foundations of the round world were discovered at thy chiding, O Lord.” See the whole, too long to be transcribed, but inimitably great and sublime.

398. The beasts are fled.] Dr. Trapp justly observes, that fugêre being put in the preter-perfect tense has a wonderful force: “We see, says he, the beasts scudding away, and they are gone, and out of sight in a moment.” It is a pity that learned gentleman did not not preserve the force of this tense in his translation. He has not only used the present tense, but has diminished the strength and quickness of the expression, which Virgil has made to consist only of two words, fugêre ferae, by adding an epithet to beasts, and mentioning the place they fly to:

Dryden has been guilty of the same oversight:

“The Latin, says Mr. Benson, is as quick and sudden as their flight. Fugêre ferae, they are all vanished in an instant. But in Mr. Dryden's translation, one would imagine these creatures were drove out of some inclosed country, and were searching for entertainment in the next forest.” But Mr. Benson did not observe the beauty of the tense.

417. And Ceres call.] This sacrifice the Romans called Ambarvalia from ambire arva; for they led the victim round the fields.

427. Mountain.]—Aridus alte. This puts me in mind of a passage in Thomson's Seasons on the same subject, the approach of a storm:

446. The heifer tossing.] This prognostic is taken from Aratus; and I would observe once for all, that almost each of the signs of weather are borrowed (and indeed beautified) from that ancient writer. The line

with several that precede and follow it, are intirely taken with very small alterations from Varro Atacinus, as may be seen in Servius.

452. Deep drinks the bow.] Alludes to the ridiculous notion of the ancients, that the rainbow suck'd up water with its horns from lakes and rivers.

461. Stalks across the scorching sands.] The line admirably represents the action of the crow, and is an echo to the sense. Those who are fond of alliteration, are delighted with this verse, where so many s's are found together: they may say the same of plena pluviam et vocat voce, in the preceding line.

467. Calm.] According to what Pierius found in several old manuscripts: for the poet begins to speak of fair weather.

477. In vain repeats.] Dr. Trapp interprets nequicquam, in vain, Dr. Martyn, not repeats.—If we understand the poet to be speaking of the continuance of fair weather, nequicquam must signify not; because, according to Pliny, the hooting of the owl at such a time would be a sign of rain.

Mr. Dryden has strangely translated this passage:

487. Not that to them.] This is a remarkable instance of Virgil's clear and beautiful style in expressing even the most abstruse notions. The meaning of the words fato prudentia major, which occasions difficulties among the commentators, seems to be, a greater knowledge (than men have) in the fate of things.

505. Clearly.] The verse in the original is quoted by Seneca in his works, in a different manner from the common reading,—Plena, nec obtusis per coelum cornibus ibit; and he certainly meant it so, by what he says of it. If this be the true reading, it may be thus understood.—“If on the fourth day of the new moon, its whole disk appears, and the horns of that part of it which is enlighten'd, are sharp, and well-pointed; then the next day, and all the following to the end of the month, will be free both from high winds and rain.” Holdsworth.

525. The dusky rain.] Tho' I believe there is no one thing in the whole language of the Romans, that we are more at a loss about now, than their names of colours; it appears evidently enough, that coerulcus was used by them for some dark colour or other. One might bring a number of instances to prove this, but one or two from Virgil will be sufficient:

536. Auster meditate.] Several of the commentators that have been used to consider the winds only in a natural way, and never perhaps in an allegorical one, are greatly offended at the word cogitet here. The thinking of a wind is to them the highest pitch of absurdity that can be. They are therefore for altering the passage into quid cogat et humidus auster, or quid concitet—contra omnes codices, as themselves say: If these gentlemen would please to consider that it is not they, but Virgil that is speaking here; that the winds were frequently represented as persons in his time; that he had been used to see them so represented both in Greece, and in his own country; that they were commonly worshipped as gods—and they may perhaps be persuaded not to think this so strange an expression for him to use. Polymetis, Dial. 13. p. 204.

541. He too bewailing.] 'Tis amazing that the best historians, Pliny, Plutarch, and Appian, join in relating these prodigies. Plutarch not only mentions the paleness of the sun, for a whole year after Caesar's death, but adds, that the fruits rotted for want of heat. Appian relates the stories of the clashing of arms, and shouts in the air, an ox speaking with a human voice, statues sweating blood, wolves howling in the Forum, and victims wanting entrails.

562. Eridanus.] The redundant syllable in fluviorum, is expressive of the inundation. Dion Cassius relates, that the river Po did not only overflow and occasion prodigious damages, but left likewise great quantities of serpents when it retired.

569. Philippi.] Many learned critics have disputed about the meaning of this passage, which was never cleared up till Mr. Holdsworth published a judicious dissertation on the subject. He is of opinion, that Virgil means by his two battles of Philippi, not two battles fought on the same individual spot, but at two distant places of the same name, the former at Philippi (alias Thebae Phthiae) near Pharsalus in Thessaly: the latter at Philippi near the confines of Thrace. And tho' historians (all except Lucius Florus) for distinction's sake, call the latter battle only by the name of Philippi; yet, as there was one at Philippi near Pharsalia, in sight of which the former was fought, the poets, for certain reasons (which, says he, I shall consider hereafter) call both by the same name. As to the reasons which he says determined Virgil to call both battles by the same name, the chief of them I think is this: “that in compliment to Augustus, he might impress the superstitious Romans with a belief, that the vengeance of the gods against the murderers of Caesar was denounced by numbers of prodigies and omens; and in so remarkable a manner that there appeared in it a particular stroke of providence, according to the heathen superstition, that the second battle which proved fatal to the Romans, should be fought in the same province with the first, and near a second Philippi.”

574. Ploughs.] The delicate art of the poet in returning to his subject by inserting this circumstance of the ploughman's finding old armour, cannot be sufficiently admired. Philips ha finely imitated it in his Cyder, where speaking of the destruction of old Ariconium, he adds,

579. Ye greater guardian gods.] Virgil (says Mr. Spence) by the dii patrii, here means the great train of deities, first received all over the east, and afterwards successively in Greece and Italy. Among the Romans, the three deities received as supreme, were Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; and therefore Virgil adds the word indigetes, to fix it to the θεοι πατρωοι, or the three great supreme gods, received as such in his own country. Indigetes here is much the same as nostri in Juvenal, when he speaks of these very deities. Mr. Spence observes how faultily Dryden has translated this passage. Polymetis, Dial. 20.

582. Etrurian.] Virgil in this place, and in Geo. 2. 530. speaks of Tuscany and Rome almost as if they were upon the same footing; chiefly out of complaisance for his great patron Mecaenas, who was descended from the old race of the kings of that country. Holdsworth.

586. False Laomedon] Apollo and Neptune being hired by Laomedon, to assist him in building a wall round his city of Troy, when the work was finished were by him defrauded of their pay.

Ver. 2. Now thee I sing, O Bacchus.] Instead of coolly proposing the subject he is going to treat of, viz. the cultivation of vines, olives, &c. the poet at once breaks out into a rapturous address to Bacchus; the image contained in the following lines is beautiful and picturesque.

We see the god treading the wine-press. Mr. Dryden's translation of this passage is remarkable.

11. Kind nature trees.] The poet says, wild trees are produced three several ways, spontaneously, by seeds, and by suckers.

22. Greece devoutly paid.] In this, and many other passages, he glances at, and ridicules the superstitions of the Grecians.

24. Cherries.] This kind of fruit had not been brought into Italy many years before Virgil wrote. 'Tis said, Lucullus first introduced them into that country after he had conquered Mithridates.

29. Yet other means.] Having spoken of trees which spontaneously propagate their species, he now proceeds to mention those methods which are used by human industry. These are by suckers, sets, layers, cuttings, pieces of cleft wood, and ingrafting. Martyn.

32. Cross-split or sharpen'd stakes.] There are two ways of planting setters. The quadrifidas sudes (says Mr Benson) is when the bottom is slit across both ways; the acuto robore is when it is cut into a point, which is called the colt's foot.

37. Olive.] It is common in Italy to see old olive-trees, that seem totally dead in the trunk, and yet have very flouing young heads. The same is often as surprizing in old willows; of which I have seen several (and particularly some in the garden island in St. James's Park) which send down a tap-root from their heads through the trunk, that often seems intirely decayed; and so form a young tree on an old stock, which looks as flourishing as the other does rotten. Spence.

47. Ismarus.] Ismarus is a mountain in Thrace; Taburnus in Campania, famous for olives.

61. The trees.] The poet had before mentioned the three ways by which wild trees are produced.—Here he follows the same method, and shews by what culture each sort may be meliorated. Martyn.

80. But quite full grown.] A curious dissertation on the subject of these verses by Mr. Holdsworth was published not long ago, of whom I have heard many able judges declare, that he understood Virgil better than any man living. In my humble opinion, says he, after the general conclusion of planting out,

And the short remark added, that some trees thrive best, not by the ordinary way of planting, but by layers and truncheons,

Virgil proceeds next to another sort of planting, still more difficult; and tells us, that not only young plants and truncheons may be removed, but even grown trees. This is methodical, and consistent with what preceded, the transition easy, and the climax just. We continue still in the plantation, but we are led into a part we had seen nothing of before, a grove of some considerable growth, newly planted. And therefore we may observe, all the epithets and decorations, used here to enliven the subject, are suited to trees of an advanced age,

By this interpretation it must appear already, that the epithet ardua, which is another difficulty with Dr Martyn, becomes plain and easy: and indeed it was so far from embarrassing me, that it helped to explain what went before. We advance farther in the plantation, and are shewn, that even the palm too (an exotic) may be transplanted when tall, or in poetic language, be born a tree; and so likewise the fir, when grown fit for a mast.

We may very reasonably imagine, that in Virgil's time, that age of luxury, the great men of Rome transplanted tall trees from woods and nurseries, as is frequently done with us, into their walks and gardens. Maecenas, to whom this book is dedicated, had a garden, we know, on the Esquiline hill, celebrated by Horace and others; and 'tis not improbable, that in order to bring it sooner to perfection, this might be practis'd there, perhaps just at the time when Virgil was writing this Georgic. If so, how artfully does the poet here insinuate, with his usual address, a compliment to his patron? I only hint this as a conjecture; but am more inclin'd to believe, that something of the wilderness part of a garden is intended, by the palm being placed amongst the others; which, tho' a fruit tree in its own country, yet is not improperly put here in the company of forest-trees, because it did not bear fruit, nor was counted a fruit-tree at that time in Italy: as Pliny informs us lib. iii. c. 4. and therefore could be planted only, as the others might, for beauty and ornament to gardens.

Whether Virgil had any such view or not, there can at least be no doubt but that removing tall trees was practis'd among the Romans. We find by Pliny, that the common method of making their arbusta, or plantations for supporting vines, was by planting out elms, when about five years old, or about twenty foot high: lib. xvii. c. 11. And the fir, mention'd above, which Pliny tells us had so deep a root, must certainly have been a tall tree, and yet, he says, was removed. As to the palm, tho' it did not arrive to such perfection in Italy, as to bear fruit, yet we find it was common there; and a tree which not only would bear removing, but thrive the better for it.

And to put this matter about removing tall trees beyond dispute, Virgil himself confirms it in another place, and makes his Corycius Senex put it in practice, Georg. iv. 144, &c.

'Tis true, most of the commentators and translators seem not to have rightly apprehended the meaning of this passage, as Dr. Martyn observes, and thereby have lost much of its spirit. But since he has render'd it justly, and given it its full force, I doubt not, but when he compares the expressions of both passages together, he will more easily agree to my interpretation; and will be surpriz'd, as indeed I am, how it before

Mr. Holdsworth observes, that Virgil had before spoken of grafting in the common method, from ver. 32 to 34.

As he there grafts only kernel fruit on kernel, and stone on stone, he shews plainly, that he understood what was the common method, and conforms to it. Again, from ver. 49. to 51. under the articles of improvements, he observes, that chance-plants, which are naturally wild, may be civilized by grafting, as crabs, sloes, or wild plums, &c.

Having thus sufficiently mentioned this practice, and there being no necessity to repeat it as he endeavours to be as concise as possible; he proceeds in the next place to tell us, that trees of different kinds may likewise be grafted on each other. And as he had before shew'd, in the four preceding verses, what art could do in transplanting tall trees; he advances here to shew what may likewise be done by the help of art in grafting, viz. that any cion may be ingrafted on any stock. All the translators have mistaken this passage: and I am indebted to Mr. Holdsworth for his clearing it up.

114. Psythia.] Passum is a wine made from raisins, or dried grapes, common both in Italy and the south of France. But the grapes are only hung up to dry, and not squeezed into barrels like our common raisins.

126. Libations.] Among the Romans the first course consisted of flesh, and the second of fruit, at which they poured out wine to offer to the gods, called a Libation. See Arbuthnot on Coins, &c.

127. Plumpest.] Bumastus is the very large red sort of grapes, that they give you so perpetually in their deserts in Italy: and particularly at Florence. It has its name from its shape, each grape being like the teat of a cow; Varro half latinises the word, where he calls it bumamma. Holdsworth.

154. Median fields.] Virgil here gives a very high character of this tree, both for its beauty and usefulness: I take it that he means orange-trees, which were brought first into Italy from Media in his time. As the orange-tree was not yet generally known in Italy, he describes it by its likeness to a tree, well known there, the laurel-tree. The leaves, says he, resemble the leaves of that; but have a finer and more diffused smell and it is almost always beautify'd with flowers. Pliny (Nat Hist. lib. xii. c. 3.) calls the orange-tree malus Medica, and his account of it agrees extremely with this in Virgil. Holdsworth.

166. Media's groves.] We are now come to his most beautiful praises of Italy; nor is it easy to determine which is greatest, the poet's skill, or the patriot's love of his country, He glances at Greece with some ironical sarcasms, in several parts of this passage; particularly he seems to laugh at some of their absurd stories: in these lines,

he alludes to the famous story of Jason. Mr. Thomson has finely imitated these praises of Italy in his Seasons, where he celebrates Great Britain. See his Summer.

181. Clitumnus.] Now called Clitumno; it rises a little below the village of Campello in Ombria. The inhabitants near this river still retain a notion, that its waters are attended with a supernatural property, imagining that it makes the cattle white that drink of it; a quality for which it is likewise celebrated by many of the Latin poets. See Melmoth's Pliny, p. 455.

196. With towns—cliffs.] Among other instances of the happiness of Italy, Virgil mentions its having so many towns built on craggy rocks and hills. There were more formerly, and are several still. In the road from Rome to Naples, you see no less than four in one view, from the hill on which Piperno now stands; reckoning that for one of them. These were very useful, of old, for defence, among such a fighting race of people: and are so still for their coolness, in so hot a climate, that they are generally forced to drive their flocks of sheep up upon the mountains for the summer-season, as they usually feed them in the sheltered plains by the sea-side in the winter. Holdsworth and Spence.

198. Ocean.] Italy is washed on the north side by the Adriatic sea, or gulph of Venice, which is called mare superum, or the upper sea; and on the south side by the Tyrrhene or Tuscan sea, which is called mare inferum, or the lower sea. The Larius is a great lake at the foot of the Alps in the Milanese, now called, Lago di Como. The Benacus is another great lake in the Veronese, now called Lago di Garda; out of which flows the Mincius, on the banks of which our poet was born. Lucrinus and Avernus are two lakes of Campania; the former of which was almost wholly destroyed by an earthquake, but the latter is still remaining, and now called Lago d' Averno.

214 The Scipios.] The elder Scipio delivered his country from the invasion of Hannibal, by transferring the war into Africa; where he subdued the Carthaginians, imposed a tribute upon them, and took hostages. Hence he had the surname of Africanus, and the honour of a triumph. The younger Scipio triumphed for the conclusion of the third Punic war, by the total destruction of Carthage. Hence they were called the thunderbolts of war—duo fulminæ belli Scipiades. Aen. 6. Virgil borrows the expression, from Lucretius, Scipiades belli fulmen.

218. All hail.] The conclusion of Pliny's natural history bears a very near resemblance to this passage, and is very beautiful. Ergo in toto orbe et quacunque coeli convexitas vergit, pulcherrima est omnium, rebusque merito principatum obtinens, Italia, rectrix parensque mundi altera; viris, foeminis, ducibus, militibus, servitiis, artium praestantiâ, ingeniorum claritatibus, jam situ ac salubritate coeli atque temperie, accessu cunctarum gentium facili, littoribus portuosis, benigno ventorum afflatu. The whole passage is worth the reader's perusal.

272. Roremque ministrat.] Ros does not in this place signify dew, as Dryden translates it, but rosemary. Virgil says that the dry hungry soil (now under consideration) is of so barren a nature, that not even those common plants, casia and rosemary, will grow in it. Dr. Martyn has proved the casia here mentioned not to be the celebrated aromatic casia, but a very vulgar herb. Perhaps the epithet humiles, in this place, ought to be construed mean or insignificant, rather than low of growth.

288. Dense.] Densa signifies such a soil, as will not easily admit the rain, is easily crack'd, and apt to gape, and so let in the sun to the root of the vines, and in a manner to strangle the young plants. This therefore must be a hard or stiff soil; rara, lets the showers quite through, and is apt to be dry'd up with the sun. Therefore this must be a loose soil. See Dr. Martyn, who grounds this interpretation on Julius Graecinus, as he is quoted by Columella.

289. Chuse.] It is extremely difficult to make this experiment, which is told with great dignity in the Latin, read gracefully and agreeably in a translation.

309. Bitter.] Amrora is in the style of Lucretius, and the true reading; tho' many read amaro, making it agree with sensû. Servius.

327.] Columella says the trenches should be dug a year beforehand. Mr. Holdsworth used to say, that Columella's treatise on husbandry was by much the best comment on Virgil's Georgics, that he knew of. Spence.

327. Two soils.] Having explained the several sorts of soil, says Martyn, he proceeds to give some instructions concerning the planting of vines: and speaks of the trenches to be made to receive the plants out of the nursery; of taking care that the nursery and the vineyards should have a like soil, and that the plants should be set with the same aspect which they had in the nursery.

346. As in just ranks.] Virgil, says Dr. Martyn, does not mean the form of a Quincunx in this description, but that you should plant your vines in a square in the following order:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As Virgil compares the disposition of the trees in a vineyard, to an army drawn up in battle array, 'tis evident that he must mean this figure. The Romans usually allowed three foot square for every common soldier to manage his arms, that is, six foot between each, which is a proper distance for the vines in Italy, according to Columella, who says the rows should not be wider than ten feet, nor nearer than four.

349. And earth reflects.] Aere renidenti tellus, says the original. This expression is borrow'd from Lucretius's, aere renidescit tellus. The shining beauties of the clusters of the vines (says Dr. Martyn) is finely represented by the splendor of the brazen arms. I beg for once to dissent from this learned gentleman, and to observe, that this part of the comparison seems too minute, and too much like an Italian conceit, for Virgil to have thought of.

370. To the west decline.] 'Tis worth observing that the poet has brought together here, more precepts than in any part of all the Georgics; but it is likewise remarkable, that he has placed them very artfully betwixt that fine passage just mentioned, and another equally beautiful. Benson.

376. Falls a spark.] This fine description of a fire raging among the vines and their supporters, judiciously relieves the dryness of the Didactic lines preceding.

394. In spring.] There are few passages in the Georgics more charming than this description of spring. He strives hard to excell Lucretius, but I am afraid it cannot be said that he has done it. The conjugis in gremium is evidently taken from

And the following lines of the same writer, to whom Virgil is indeed infinitely obliged, are very fine; he is likewise speaking of the genial influence of the spring:

404.] This ascribing boldness and fear to trees is highly poetical.

415. Stars.] This seems to be oddly put together at first sight. The forests were stock'd with beasts, and the heavens with constellations. It was not so in those times, when the constellations were generally considered as real animals, and many of them as men, but most of them as beasts. The prologue to Plautus his Rudens is spoken by Arcturus, as one of the Dramatis Personae. Spence.

422. Pebbles hide.] Mr. Evelyn mentions the placing potsheards, pebbles, or flints near the root of the stem; but then he adds, remember you remove them after a competent time, else the vermin, snails and insects which they produce and shelter, will gnaw and greatly injure their bark; and therefore to lay a coat of moist rotten litter with a little earth upon it, will preserve it moist in summer, and warm in winter, enriching the showers and dews that strain thro' it. Evelyn of Forest Trees.

436. Assisted thus.] The word tabulata in the original signifies the branches of elms extended at proper distances to sustain the vines. See Martyn.

440. Dart into the air.] The original says, laxis per purum immissus habenis; this expression is doubtless extremely bold and strong, but the poet had the authority of his master Lucretius.

460. Hence on the lofty stage.] The ancient theatre was a semicircular building, appropriated to the acting of plays, the name being derived from θεαομαι to behold. It was divided into the following parts. 1. The porticus, scalae, sedilia; the rows of sedilia, or seats, were called cunei, because they were formed like wedges, growing narrower, as they came nearer the center of the theatre; and these were all disposed about the circumference of the theatre. 2. The orchestra, so called from ορχειαι to dance: it was the inner part, or centre of the theatre, and the lowest of all, and hollow, whence the whole open space of the theatre was called cavea. Here sat the senators, and here were the dancers and musick. 3. The proscenium, which was a place drawn from one horn of the theatre to the other, between the orchestra and the scene, being higher than the orchestra, and lower than the scene: here the comic and tragic actors spoke and acted upon an elevated place, which was called the pulpitum, or stage. 4. The scene was the opposite part to the audience, decorated with pictures and columns, and originally with trees, to shade the actors, when they performed in the open air. 5. Proscenium, or part behind the scenes. Ruaeus.

473. The god.] Virgil speaks of some little heads of Bacchus, which the countrymen of old hung up on trees, that the face might turn every way; out of a notion that the regards of this god gave felicity to their vineyards: and Ovid mentions Bacchus's turning his face towards him, as a blessing. The former, in a passage, which is not very easy to be understood of itself; and for the full understanding of which, I was obliged to a gem in the Great Duke's collection at Florence. Virgil on this occasion says, that there is plenty where ever this god turns his beautiful face. Mr. Dryden, in his translation of the words, seems to have borrowed his idea of Bacchus from the vulgar representation of him on our sign-posts, and so calls it, [in downright English] Bacchus's honest face. Polymetis, page 130.

502. At the last rank.] Mr. Benson complains, that he could not find that the word antes in the original, was used by any other Roman writer, and says, that he did not know what to make of it. It undoubtedly signifies ranks or files, and is a metaphor taken from the army. For Cato de Re Militari, says, pedites quatuor agminibus, equites duobus antibus duces.

541. Elms, foodful leaves.] The use of the very leaves of this tree, especially of the female, is not to be despised; for being suffered to dry in the sun upon the branches, and the spray stripped off about the decrease in August (as also where the suckers and stolones are supernumerary, and hinder the thriving of their nurses) they will prove a great relief to cattle in winter, and scorching summers; when hay and fodder is dear they will eat them before oats, and thrive exceedingly well with them. Evelyn.

550. The fierce Centaurs.] This happened at the nuptials of Pirithous, king of the Lapithæ, where a Centaur aided by his brethren, attempted to ravish his bride Hippodamia.

552. Thrice happy swains.] The following description of the pleasures of a country life is celebrated almost to a proverb; it affords the highest ideas of Virgil's uncorrupt mind, as well as of his poetry. He has assembled here all the most striking and beautiful objects of nature. No contrast was ever worked up more strongly, than this between the city and country life.

553. Felt their happiness.] Sua si bona norint, is a tender reproach to the Romans for their insensibility of being delivered, a discordibus armis, and restored to the quiet enjoyment of their possessions. Benson.

556. Tho' high-arch'd domes.] Virgil hath so evidently taken the very turn and manner of expression in these lines from a passage in his master Lucretius (Book 2.) that I cannot forbear inserting it; and shall leave the reader to judge which of the two is most beautiful.

580. Me may the lowly vales.] Cowley observes upon this passage, that the first wish of Virgil was to be a good philosopher; the second, a good husbandman; and God, whom he seemed to understand better than most of the learned heathens, dealt with him just as he did with Solomon; because he prayed for wisdom in the first place, he added all things else which were subordinately to be desired. He made him one of the best philosophers, and the best husbandman; and to adorn and communicate both those faculties, the best poet: he made him besides all this a rich man, and a man who desired to be no richer.

590. O that I wander'd.] O ubi campi, &c. It cannot possibly be the poet's enquiry where these places are situated, tho' most of the translators take it so; but it is an ardent wish to be placed in such delightful retreats. Catrou, and the learned M. Huet, bishop of Avranches, read O ubi Tempe, instead of campi, which is most consistent with the passage.

These noble lines are undoubtedly a compliment to Lucretius, whose system must lead him to despise the fears of death and hell: how strongly and poetically is the latter particular expressed by the roaring (din or noise) of the infernal river Acheron.

592. Haemus.] The very best of the Roman poets copied so much after the Greeks, that they sometimes give us ideas of things, that would be proper enough for a Greek, but sound quite improper from a Roman. Virgil's and Horace's instancing Thrace, as so very cold a country, is a strong proof of this.—Thrace was full north of Greece, and some of the Greeks therefore might talk of the coldness of that country as strongly, perhaps, as some among us talk of the coldness of Scotland. The Roman writers speak just in the same stile of the coldness of Thrace, tho' a considerable part of Italy lay in as northern a latitude, and some of it even farther north than Thrace. Spence.

604. He weeps no wretch's.] The meaning of nec doluit miserans inopem is not, that he looks on distress and misery with a stoical apathy and indifference, but that there is no body in the country (so happy are they) to be pitied. Mr. Benson and Dr. Trapp.

608. The noisy people's rage.] The tabularium in the original was the place where the publick records were kept at Rome. It was in the temple of Liberty. Catrou.

615. To quaff in gems.] The Romans carried luxury so far, as to procure large drinking cups made of one intire gem. See instances of this kind in Pliny's natural history. Pocula myrrhina were common among them. Tyre was anciently called Sarra, hence Sarrano ostro.

641. His infants.] Pendent circum oscula, hang about his kisses, is an image most poetical and well expressed; but would not bear a literal translation. The passage in Lucretius, from whom this is imitated, has an image still more tender and natural.—He says,—nec dulces occurunt oscula nati praeripere,—which last word, representing the children running out to meet their father, and striving which shall have the first kiss is very beautiful.

652. The frugal Sabines.] To raise the praises of the country life still higher, he tells us, that this was the life their glorious ancestors, and the first founders of their city were so fond of. Virum bonum cum laudabant, ita laudabant bonum agricolam bonum colonum. Amplissimè laudari existimabatur qui ita laudabatur, says the venerable old Cato.

654. Tuscans.] He mentions Etruria in compliment to Maecenas, who was descended from the ancient kings of Tuscany. Tyrrhena regum progenies, &c. Hor.

660. Useful bullock's gore.] Varro informs us, that in ancient times it was deemed a capital crime to kill an ox; Hic socius hominum in rustico opere, et Cereris minister. Ab hoc, antiqui manus ita abstineri voluerunt, ut capite sanxerit, si quis occidisset. I could not forbear quoting this passage for its great humanity.

Ver. 1. Thy praise propitious Pales.] This is the book which appears to me the most charming of all the Georgics. Mr. Addison's favourite is the fourth, which indeed is more sweet and elegant, but the beauties of this are more great and sublime. He invokes Pales as the goddess of shepherds, and Apollo who fed the herds of king Admetus on the banks of the river Amphrysus.

5. Familiar are the songs.] Virgil here strongly ridicules the trite and fabulous subjects of the Grecian poets. 'Tis ingeniously conjectured by Fulvius Ursinus, that he alludes to particular authors who had treated of the fabulous stories he mentions. Thus Homer has related the fable of Eurystheus in the eighteenth Iliad. Athenaeus quotes the Busiris of Mnesimachus in his ninth book. Theocritus and Apollonius relate the story of Hylas and Hercules his grief for his loss. Callimachus is referred to in Latonia Delos, and the first Olympic ode of Pindar is to be understood by the mention of Hippodamia and Pelops. He breaks out at last into a noble triumph of assurance, that he shall rival these Greek poets:

Mr. Pope used to say, that this triumph of Virgil over the Greek poets, was one of the vainest things that ever was writ.

17. These hands.] Mr. Hurd in his notes on Horace's Epistle to Augustus, hath discoursed so entertainingly on the introductory lines of this third book, that it was thought proper to insert the following extract from that judicious work.

On the idea of the Apotheosis, which was the usual mode of flattery in the Augustan age, but, as having the countenance of public authority, sometimes inartificially enough employed, Virgil hath projected one of the noblest allegories in ancient poetry, and at the same time hath given to it all the force of just compliment, the occasion itself allowed. Each of these excellencies was to be expected from his talents. For as his genius led him to the sublime; so his exquisite judgment would instruct him to palliate this bold fiction, and qualify as much as possible, the shocking adulation, implied in it. So singular a beauty deserves to be shewn at large.

The third Georgic sets out with an apology for the low and simple argument of that work, which yet the poet esteemed, for its novelty, preferable to the sublimer, but trite, themes of the Greek writers. Not but he intended, on some future occasion, to adorn a nobler subject. This was the great plan of the Aeneis, which he now prefigures and unfolds at large. For, taking advantage of the noblest privilege of his art, he breaks away, in a fit of prophetic enthusiasm, to predict his successes in this projected enterprize, and, under the imagery of the antient triumph, which comprehends, or suggests to the imagination, whatever is most august in human affairs, to delineate the future glories of this ambitious design. The whole conception, as we shall see, is of the utmost grandeur and magnificence; tho', according to the usual management of the poet (which as not being apprehended by his critics, hath furnished occasion even to the best of them, to charge him with a want of the sublime) he hath contrived to soften and familiarize its appearance to the reader, by the artful manner, in which it is introduced. It stands thus:

The idea of victory, thus casually dropped, he makes the basis of his imagery; which, by means of this gradual preparation, offers itself easily to the apprehension, though it thereby loses, as the poet designed it should, much of that broad glare, in which writers of less judgment love to shew their ideas, as tending to set the common reader at a gaze. The allegory then proceeds:

The projected conquest was no less than that of all the Grecian Muses at once; whom, to carry on the decorum of the allegory, he threatens, 1. to force from their high and advantageous situation on the summit of the Aonian Mount; and 2. to bring captive with him into Italy; the former circumstance intimating to us the difficulty and danger of the enterprize; and the latter, his complete execution of it.

The palmy, triumphal entry, which was usual to victors on their return from foreign successes, follows:

But ancient conquerors did not hold it sufficient to reap this transient fruit of their labours. They were ambitious to consecrate their glory to immortality, by a temple, or other public monument, which was to be built out of the spoils of the conquered cities or countries. This the reader sees is suitable to the idea of the great work proposed; which was, out of the old remains of Grecian art, to compose a new one, that should comprize the virtues of all of them: as, in fact, the Aeneid is known to unite in itself whatever is most excellent not in Homer only, but, universally, in the wits of Greece. The everlasting monument of the marble temple is then reared:

And, because ancient superstition usually preferred, for these purposes, the banks of rivers to other situations, therefore the poet, in beautiful allusion to the site of some of the most celebrated pagan temples, builds his on the Mincius. We see with what a scrupulous propriety the allusion is carried on.

Next, this temple was to be dedicated, as a monument of the victor's piety, as well as glory, to some propitious, tutelary deity, under whose auspices the great adventure had been atchieved. The dedication is then made to the poet's divinity, Augustus:

Templum tenebit. The expression is emphatical; as intimating to us, and prefiguring the secret purpose of the Aeneis, which was, in the person of Aeneas, to shadow forth and consecrate the character of Augustus. His divinity was to fill and occupy that great work. And the ample circuit and magnificence of the epic plan was projected only, as a more awful enclosure of that august presence, which was to inhabit and solemnize the vast round of this poetic building.

And now the wonderful address of the poet's artifice appears. The mad servility of his country had deified the emperor in good earnest: and his brother poets made no scruple to worship in his temples, and to come before him with handfuls of real incense, smoking from the altars. But the sobriety of Virgil's adoration was of another cast. He seizes this circumstance only to embody a poetical fiction; which, on the supposition of an actual deification, hath all the force of compliment, which the fact implies, and yet, as presented through the chaste veil of allegory, eludes the monstrous offence, which the naked recital must needs have given to decency and common sense. Had the emperor's popular divinity been flatly acknowledged, and adored, the praise, even under Virgil's management, had been insufferable for its extravagance; and without some support for his poetical numen to rest upon, the figure had been more forced and strained, than the rules of just writing allow. As it is, the historical truth of his apotheosis authorizes and supports the fiction, and the fiction in its turn, serves to refine and palliate the history.

The Aeneis being, by the poet's improvement of this circumstance, thus naturally predicted under the image of a temple, we may expect to find a close and studied analogy betwixt them. The great, component parts of the one, will no doubt, be made, very faithfully, to represent and adumbrate those of the other. This hath been executed with great art and diligence.

1. The temple, we observed, was erected on the banks of a river. This site was not only proper for the reason already mentioned, but also, for the further convenience of instituting public games, the ordinary attendants of the consecration of temples. These were generally, as in the case of the Olympic and others, celebrated on the banks of rivers.

To see the propriety of the figure in this place, the reader needs only be reminded of the book of games in the Aeneid, which was purposely introduced in honour of the emperor, and not, as is commonly thought, for a mere trial of skill between the poet and his master. The emperor was passionately fond of these sports, and was even the author, or restorer of one of them. It is not to be doubted, that he alludes also to the quinquennial games, actually celebrated, in honour of his temples, through many parts of the empire. And this the poet undertakes in the civil office of victor.

2. What follows is in the religious office of priest. For it is to be noted, that, in assuming this double character, which the decorum of the solemnities, here recounted, prescribed, the poet has an eye to the political design of the Aeneis, which was to do honour to Caesar, in either capacity of a civil and religious personage; both being essential to the idea of the perfect legislator, he was to adorn and recommend. The account of his sacerdotal functions is delivered in these words:

The imagery in this place cannot be understood, without reflecting on the customary form and disposition of the pagan temples. Delubrum, or Delubra, for either number is used indifferently, denotes the shrine, or sanctuary, wherein the statue of the presiding God was placed. This was in the center of the building. Exactly before the delubrum, and at no great distance from it, was the altar. Further, the the shrine, or delubrum, was inclosed, and shut up on all sides by doors of curious carved work, and ductile veils, embellish'd by the rich embroidery of flowers, animals, or human figures. This being observed, the progress of the imagery before us will be this. The procession ad delubra, or shrine: the sacrifice on the altars, erected before it: and, lastly, the painted, or rather wrought scenery of the purple veils, inclosing the image, which were ornamented, and seemed to be sustained or held up by the figures of inwoven Britons. The meaning of all which, is, that the poet would proceed to the celebration of Caesar's praise in all the gradual, solemn preparation of poetic pomp: that he would render the most grateful offerings to his divinity in those occasional episodes, which he should consecrate to his more immediate honour: and finally, that he would provide the richest texture of his fancy, for a covering to that admired image of his virtues, which was to make the sovereign pride and glory of his poem. The choice of the inwoven Britons, for the support of his veil, is well accounted for by those, who tell us, that Augustus was proud to have a number of these to serve about him in quality of slaves.

The ornaments of the doors of this delubrum, on which the sculptor used to lavish all the riches of his art, are next delineated.

Here the covering of the figure is too thin to hide the literal meaning from the commonest reader, who sees, that the several triumphs of Caesar, here recorded in sculpture, are those, which the poet hath taken so much pains to finish, and hath occasionally inserted, as it were, in miniature, in several places of his poem. Let him only turn to the prophetic speech of Anchises' shade in the VIth, and to the description of the shield in the VIIIth book.

Hitherto we have contemplated the decorations of the shrine, i. e. such as bear a more direct and immediate reference to the honour of Caesar. We are now presented with a view of the remoter, surrounding ornaments of the temple. These are the illustrious Trojan chiefs, whose story was to furnish the materials, or, more properly, to form the body and case, as it were, of this august structure. They are also connected with the idol deity of the place by the closest ties of relationship, the Julian family affecting to derive its pedigree from this proud original. The poet then, in his arrangement of these additional figures, with admirable judgment, completes and rounds the entire fiction.

Nothing now remains but for fame to eternize the glories of what the great architect had, at the expence of so much art and labour, completed; which is predicted, in the highest sublime of ancient poetry, under the idea of envy, whom the poet personalizes, shuddering at the view of such transcendent perfection; and tasting, beforehand, the pains of a remediless vexation, strongly pictured in the image of the worst, infernal tortures.

Thus have I presumed, but with a religious awe, to inspect and declare the mysteries of this ideal temple. The attempt after all might have been censured, as prophane, if the great Mystagogue himself, or some body for him , had not given us the undoubted key to it. Under this encouragement I could not withstand the temptation of disclosing thus much of one of the noblest fictions of antiquity; and the rather, as the propriety of allegoric composition, which made the distinguished pride of ancient poetry, seems but little known or attended to by the modern professors of this fine art.

In these lines,

Accingar is of frequent use in the best authors, to denote a readiness and resolution to do any thing; but as joined with an infinitive mood, accingar dicere, I do not remember to have ever seen it. 'Tis often used by Virgil, but, if the several places be consulted, it will always be found with an accusative and preposition, expressed or understood, as magicas accingier artes, or with an accusative and dative, as accingere se praedae, or lastly with an ablative, expressing the instrument, as accingor ferro. La Cerda, in his notes upon the place, seemed sensible of the objection, and therefore wrote, Graeca locutio: the common, but paltry, shift of learned critics, when they determine, at any rate, to support an ancient reading.

2. Ardentes pugnas, burning battles, sounds well enough to a modern ear, but I much doubt, if it would have passed in the times of Virgil. At least, I recollect no such expression in all his works; ardens being constantly joined to a word, denoting a substance of apparent light, heat, or flame, to which the allusion is easy, as ardentes gladios, ardentes oculos, campos armis sublimibus ardentes, and by an easy metaphor, ardentes hostes, but no where, that I can find, to so abstract a notion, as that of fight. It seems to be to avoid this difficulty, that some have chosen to read ardentis, in the genitive, which yet Servius rejects as of no authority. 3. But the most glaring note of illegitimacy is in the line,

It has puzzled all the commentators from old Servius down to Mr. Martyn, to give any tolerable account of the poet's choice of Tithonus, from whom to derive the ancestry of Augustus, rather than Anchises, or Assaracus, who were not only more famous, but in the direct line. The pretences of any or all of them are too frivolous to make it necessary to spend a thought about them. The instance stands single in antiquity; much less is there any thing like it to be found in the Augustan poets.

II. But the phraseology of these lines is the least of my objection. Were it ever so accurate, there is, besides, on the first view, a manifest absurdity in the subject-matter of them. For would any writer, of but common skill in the art of composition, close a long and elaborate allegory, the principal grace of which consists in its very mystery, with a cold, and formal explanation of it? Or would he pay so poor a compliment to his patron, as to suppose his sagacity wanted the assistance of this additional triplet to lead him into the true meaning? Nothing can be more abhorrent from the usual address and artifice of Virgil's manner. Or,

III. Were the subject-matter itself passable, yet, how, in defiance of all the laws of disposition, came it to be forced in here? Let the reader turn to the passage, and he will soon perceive, that this could never be the place for it. The allegory being concluded, the poet returns to his subject, which is proposed in the six following lines:

Would now any one expect, that the poet, after having conducted the reader thus respectfully, to the very threshold of his subject, should immediately run away again to the point, from which he had set out, and this on so needless an errand, as the letting him into the secret of his allegory?

But this inserted triplet agrees as ill with what follows, as with what precedes it. For how abrupt is the transition, and unlike the delicate connection, so studiously contriv'd by the Augustan poets, from

to

When omit but these interpolated lines, and see how gracefully, and by how natural a succession of ideas, the poet slides into the main of his subject.—

On the whole, I have not the least doubt, that the lines before us are the spurious offspring of some later poet; if indeed the writer of them deserve that name; for, whoever he was, he is so far from partaking of the original spirit of Virgil, that at most, he appears to have been but a servile and paltry mimic of Ovid; from the opening of whose Metamorphosis the design was clearly taken. The turn of the thought is evidently the same in both, and even the expression. Mutatas dicere formas is echoed by ardentes dicere pugnas: dicere fert animus, is, by an affected improvement, accingar dicere: and Tithoni prima ab origine is almost literally the same as primaque ab origine mundi. For the insertion of these lines in this place, I leave it to the curious to conjecture of it, as they may; but in the mean time, must esteem the office of the true critic to be so far resembling that of the poet himself, as within some proper limitations, to justify the honest liberty here taken.

19. Spreading wide his ling'ring waters.] This description of the Mincio is, as exact as possible; the force of it lies chiefly in the epithets, tardis, ingens—the wide spreading and almost stagnation of the river, which forms the lake of Mantua.

35. I see the turning scene.] The commentators seem not sufficiently to have explained the expression of, ut versis discedat frontibus in the original. The ancient scenes were painted on a triangular machine, mark'd in the plate, D; which was so formed as to turn upon an axle or pin; each of its three sides, mark'd in the ground-plan of the plate, 1. 2. 3. represented a different subject; viz. 1. a city. 2. a palace or magnificent portico. 3. a wild forest, cave, or meadow. When a comedy was play'd, the first of these three frontispieces was turned towards the spectators; when a tragedy, the second; when a satyrical piece (such, for instance, as the Cyclops of Euripides) the third was exposed to view. And these triangular machines were placed under the arches of the theatre, marked in the plate, A, B, C. See Vitruvius B. 5. and L'Antiquite expliqueè, par D. Ber. Montfaucon, tom. 3. p. 235.

38. High on the gates.] These beautiful verses, containing an allegory of his design to publish the Aeneid in honour of Augustus, must have been added in the year of Rome 734, after Augustus had subdued the Indians and Parthians, and recovered the eagles which had been lost by Crassus. The invidia infelix points at those persons, which must have been many, that secretly repined at the imperial dignity of Augustus. Let me add the following passage from Polymetis.

“The persons he is speaking of are the enemies of the Julian family: or the faction, as he calls it, against the Caesars. These, he says, should be represented on the temple he would build to Augustus, as in the tortures of Tartarus; and more particularly as punished in the same manner as Ixion and Sisyphus. Ixion was punished there for his ingratitude and impiety: Sisyphus as a villain and a robber. So that this is calling all the party against Augustus, rascals and ingrates; and infers the highest compliment to that prince, at the same time that it is the most cruel of invectives against his enemies.

96. The days of youth.] This tender moral reflection thrown in, diversifies and exalts the low subject the poet is treating of.

108. Ev'n now the colt.] Having spoken of the marks of good cows, the poet proceeds to speak of horses, and gives a beautiful description of a colt that is fit to be chosen for a stallion. There is some difficulty concerning the meaning of spadices: but after much enquiry Dr. Martyn thinks it is, the colour we call bay, chesnut, or sorrel.

116. Grey.] Glaucus, when spoken of the colour of an horse, signifies a dark or iron-grey; our people in Wales, still call a grey horse kephal glauce. Holdsworth.

119. Restless he paws.] This is a beautiful description of a mettlesome horse; but it is far excelled by that noble one in the book of Job. Particularly, “He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage, neither believeth he (for joy!) that it is the sound of the trumpet,” is more spirited and strong than any circumstance in Virgil's picture.

132. Such Saturn.] Saturn, to avoid being discovered by his wife Ops while he was engaged with Phylyra his mistress, turned himself into a beautiful horse. Chiron the famous centaur was the son of this nymph Phylyra.

148. Dost thou not see.] No description was ever more spirited and lively than this of the chariot race. The poet has crowded into a few lines all the circumstances that are most striking in the famous description of Homer, and it must be owned has here excelled the Greek poet. One may say, as Longinus does on almost a similar occasion, that the soul of the reader is, as it were, mounted in the chariot, and whirled along in the race with it.

160. Erichthonius.] Bigas primum junxit Phrygum natio, quadrigas Erichthonius. Pliny. He likewise says, that Bellerophon invented the backing of horses, Pelethronius bridles and furniture, and the centaurs of Thessaly the fighting on horseback.

163. Form his pliant feet.] There are several lines in this third Georgic, which shew that the manége was found out much earlier than some would imagine. Witness the following passage,

And that other,

The simile just after was meant to shew, a violently swift, but at the same time a level and uniform motion.

170. Without these virtues.] I received the following observations on this passage from a very ingenious gentleman.

I have always been absolutely at a loss to make out the connection of these three lines [in the original] with the foregoing. Translators and commentators make quamvis refer to something which is certainly not expressed there, nor I think implied, or insinuated; nor indeed consistent with what is there expressed. How can the horse be supposed, saepae versos hostes egisse, if he was not calidus animis? Quamvis implies an opposition between these two, whereas no two things can be more naturally connected. You have got over the difficulty as well as your neighbours, but I think it is insuperable, as the text now stands. Besides, quamvis implies that the horse above described was rejected, not that he was sought out, and chosen. In short I am persuaded, these three lines are not in their right place Suppose them placed as follows;

Hunc quoque—abde domo—quamvis—Observe that the horses here above mentioned are war-horses; Pollux', Mars' and Achilles' his horses; qui versos hostes egerint; now see how well the other passage goes on without the lines in question.

By way of precedent, there are two remarkable transpositions of this kind in the Aeneid, which the critics have rectified against all authority of manuscripts—Aeneid 6. 745. Donec longa dies—and the two next lines, which should follow, after exuritur igni.

Aeneid 10. 717. Ille autem impavidus—and the next, which should come after clamoribus instant.

176. With genial herbs.] Varro and Columella speak of the necessity of feeding the bulls amply for two months before the time. Tauros duobus mensibus ante admissuram herbâ, et paleâ et focno facio pleniores et a faeminis secerno. Varro.

182. New desires.] Voluptas nota in the original, does not signify the experienced pleasure, says Dr. Martyn, but the desire which now first begins to be known by the young mare. Jam nota, just now (and not before) known.

203 Asilus.] This insect is a dreadful plague to the cows of Italy. An Italian writer quoted by Dr. Martyn informs us, that it resembles a wasp, has two membraneous wings, with which it makes a most horrible whizzing. The belly is terminated by three long rings, one within another, from the last of which proceeds a formidable sting. This sting is composed of a tube thro' which the egg is emitted, and two augres, which make way for the tube to penetrate into the skin of the cattle. These augres are armed with little knives which prick with their points, and cut with their edges, causing intolerable pain to the wounded animal.

226. Correction bear.] Mr. Dryden talks here of sending the calf to school, restraining him from the bad examples of the world, and instructing him in moral precepts. Virgil says only, ad studium et usum agrestem dum faciles animi.

263. Like Boreas.] It cannot be imagined, by the severest critics, who think such beauties of style in the ancients chimerical, that Virgil did not intend to represent by this swift line of dactyles the course of the wind.

270. Elean plain.] This alludes to the Olympic games celebrated about Olympia in the region of Elis. Whoever would have a just notion of the great political usefulness of these celebrated games of Greece, will meet with much pleasure and instruction from the learned and ingenious Mr. West's dissertation prefixed to his translation of an author, to whom he alone, of all the moderns, has done justice, in a spirited and elegant translation of his odes. See Mr. West's Pindar.

285. The mighty rivals.] The description of the bulls contending for the female is admirable; particularly, that fine circumstance of the vanquish'd bull looking back on his old accustomed stall and pastures when he is forced to retreat. And still more so, the circumstance of his lying down, sullenly disconsolate, on the stones, feeding upon rushes and prickly leaves, and exercising his horns against the trunks of trees, to enable himself to contend again with his hated rival. All these beautiful strokes are concluded by the noble simile of a vast wave rolling towards a rocky shore. The pause at procumbit—

is very expressive of the thing intended.

332. How fares the youth.] The poet alludes to the celebrated story of Hero and Leander, perhaps the most entertaining of all the ancient love-tales; the Musaeus who has written an elegant poem on this subject, was not the ancient Musaeus; for several false conceits and thoughts, rather pretty than solid, and contrary to the simplicity of the older Grecian writers, evidently betray the later age of the piece. 'Tis observable Virgil hints, that the whole species would encounter the same dangers as Leander did for the sake of love.

357. Hippomanes.] The hippomanes signifies two things. 1. A certain liquor that flows from a mare ready to take horse. 2. An excrescence of flesh which the new foaled colts have upon their foreheads. It is black, round, and of the bigness of a dried fig. It is pretended that these two hippomanes's have a peculiar virtue in philtres, and other such compositions designed for fascinations. And that the last is of such a nature, that a mare has no sooner dropped her colt, but she eats this piece of flesh, without which she would not suckle it. A curious reader may see a learned dissertation on this subject at the end of Mr. Bayle's Dictionary.

371. Where never poet.] This is an imitation of Lucretius:

372. Pales.] The third is the most epic of all the Georgics; and the introduction to it, as well as several passages in it, particularly this, shew that Virgil regarded it as such himself. Holdsworth.

391. Tents.] Varro speaking of the usefulness of goats, says, they are shorn for the use of sailors and war.

404. The freshness of the morning is painted in the liveliest colours.

407. Shrill cicada's lay.] Several of the modern Italian poets mention the singing of the cicada, as very loud and troublesome in the great heats of summer. Per gli ombrosi rami le argute cicale cantando si affatica vano sotto al gran caldo. Arcadia del Sannazaro, Prosa 10.

412. Or where.] How beautifully has the poet enlivened these dry precepts concerning the time of watering cattle by this description of a little landscape! of a vast old oak standing in a valley, or an ilex or ever-green oak, spreading a thick and solemn shade! The description of the cool of the evening is delightful,

412. Ilex-forest dark and deep.] We have not a full idea of this image, from our not knowing of how deep a green the ilex is, and what a vast shade it casts in Italy, where there are great numbers of this tree.

422. By day.] Thi digression to the shepherds of Africa cannot be sufficiently praised—one sees them

The vastness of those plains are represented by the very flow of this line,

428. So Rome's.] The Roman soldiers were wont to carry in their campaigns, not only their swords, helmets and shields, but likewise provisions for a fortnight, and stakes and utensils.

432. Not so.] The contrast is very strong between the scenes of Africa and Scythia, and has a fine effect. This variety, this magic art of conveying the reader from one climate to another, constitutes one of the greatest beauties of poetry.

M. de Maup rtuis, who, with some other academicians, was sent by the king of France, in 1736, to measure a degree of the meridian, under the arctic circle, says, that brandy was the only liquor, which could be kept sufficiently fluid for them to drink: Pendant un froid si grand, que la langue et les levres se geloient sur le champ, contre le tasse, &c. And a little afterwards he tells us, that the spirits of wine froze in their thermometers. See Dr. Martyn for other instances.

442. Or when he climbs.] This winter-piece has ever been admired as one of the capital paintings of Virgil. Mr. Thomson has given us a noble imitation of it, in his view of winter within the polar circle; and has added some striking circumstances, not to be found in Virgil, which modern travellers have observed. I cannot forbear transcribing his conclusion, where he describes winter personally. The image is very sublime.

478. Tho' white thy ram.] If the tongue of the ram be black or speckled, (says Varro) the lambs will be of the same colour. See Aristotle of animals, to the same purpose.

497. Nor mean the toil] The poet says but little concerning the care and breeding of dogs, or of hunting. Mr. Somerville, in his poem entituled the Chace, one of the best productions of this age, has in some measure supplied the defect.

513. The viper too.] Dr. Martyn thinks the serpent here described to be that which Pliny calls boas. This author affirms they grew to a prodigious bigness, and that a child was found in the belly of one of them in the reign of Claudius: that they feed on cow's milk, whence they have their name. The line a little below

is exactly expressive of hurry and eagerness: there are no particles in it; so in the fourth Aeneid,

523. Calabria's forests.] The poet here speaks of another serpent called chersydrus, from its living both in water, and on earth.

539. Brandishes.] Micare in its true and natural signification relates to any quick motion. So Virgil, micat auribus; and Cicero, digitis micare; of that old game so common in Italy of darting out their fingers, and guessing at the number of these darted out each time, so often mentioned by others of the Roman writers. Holdsworth.

542. Scabs oft the flock.] Columella remarks, that a sheep as soon as it is sheared, should be anointed with a mixture of the juice of lupines, the lees of old wine, and the dregs of oil, in equal quantities; and be washed four days afterwards in the sea, or in rain water salted; and quotes the authority of Celsus, who affirms that a sheep treated after this manner, will be free from the scab a whole year, and that the wool will be the softer, and the longer for it. See Dr. Martyn on the place.

567. And fierce Gelonian] Several northern nations at this time drink mare's milk mixed with blood. Pliny says, they mixed millet with it.

579. This truth to know.] The sense is, if any one knows what sort of places these were, when they were full of cattle, he may now see them empty, tho' it is a long time since the pestilence. Servius.

580. The pastures where Timavus'.] Timavus is a river of Carniola.

581. And Noric cliffs.] Noricum was a region of Germany bordering on the Alps.

585. Here sprung of old.] We now enter upon the celebrated description of the plague. Virgil puts forth all his strength to endeavour to excel Lucretius's sixth book on the plague at Athens. Neither can I think he has so far excelled his master (for such he was) as some critics imagine. Many hints in this description are borrowed from Thucydides his famous account of the plague at Athens. See Dr. Martyn for a full and particular account of this pestilence.

607. The victor horse.] Infelix studiorum in the original is an expression resembling laeta laborum, victus animi, fortunatus laborum. Read the description of these symptoms from this line to fauces premit aspera lingua: see how nobly the poet acquits himself on a subject, so exceeding difficult to be described, and let us compare it with a singularly fine one in Lucretius of the same kind:

628. The bullock sinks.] How exquisitely beautiful is the pause in this verse at the word gemitus! it tristis arator, by the very melancholy flow of the words places the action of the ploughman full in our sight: the next line proceeds as slow as possible, consisting of all spondees,

The circumstance of the brother heifer grieving is most tenderly imagined. Non umbrae altorum nemorum is an imitation of Lucretius, where the dam is lamenting her calf that was sacrificed;

It was upon reading these exquisite lines, that Scaliger declared, he had rather have been the author of them, than to have been the first favourite of Craesus or Cyrus. I wish there was no sentiment in Scaliger's works more extravagant than this.

652. The wily wolf.] Observe these circumstances of the wolves prowling no more, because acrior illum cura domat, and the deer wandering near the dwellings of men.

656. On the shores.] Virgil, 'tis observed, expressly contradicts Aristotle, who asserts, that pestilential diseases never affect fishes.

660. Th'astonish'd hydra.] I know not a stronger image in any poet whatever, than this of the serpents dying with their scales erect and stiffened: attoniti (which is a most expressive word in this place) squamis astantibus hydri!

The poet brings into his subject the inhabitants of every element, making as it were all nature affected with this dreadful plague.

665. Chiron, Melampus.]The poet does not mean that the plague happened in the days of Chiron and Melampus, but that the very best physicians acknowledged their skill useless in this case. Particulars are named for generals. Lucretius speaks personally of the art of physic, which has a fine effect.

667. Tisiphone from hell.] The figure of Tisiphone driving before her a train of diseases and fear, is nobly conceived. It puts one in mind of that exalted image in Habakuk, where the prophet speaking of Jehovah in his wrath, says, “Before him went the pestilence.” The circumstance of the fury Tisiphone's growing every day larger and larger, is truly admirable, as it so justly alludes to the daily increase of the pestilence. This is the beauty of an allegory, to have it supported by truth.

672. The withering banks] What can be more pathetic than the circumstance of the hills perpetually echoing with the mournful bleatings of the sheep, &c.

683. Th'insatiate flame.] Some imagine that by sacer ignis an erysipelas or St. Anthony's fire may be meant.

But perhaps sacer may mean accursed, or direful—auri sacra fames—sacer esto.