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which has operated to increase, in a very com- CHAP. plicated degree, the obscurity that, to a certain extent, naturally belongs to the poem. One of these is an assumption, that Virgil speaks in this Eclogue of a child who should be born in the consulate of Pollio; the other, an assumption, that he undertakes to foretel the future fortune of the child who should then be born. It was morally impossible that the mind of any one, who already admitted those assumptions as true, should at the same time be susceptible of so contradictory an idea, as that Octavius was the child whom Virgil had in his contemplation; because Octavius was actually grown up to manhood, and was already advanced in the career of his glory, in the year when Pollio became consul. And since all commentators, who have not lapsed into the pious error of Constantine, have concurred with Servius in allowing the truth of those assumptions, the necessary consequence has been, that Virgil's solution of his own enigma, by a most singular instance of pre-occupation, has been constantly overlooked by them ALL.

CHAP.

II.

But if, upon a more minute investigation, it shall appear, that both those assumptions are positively groundless and gratuitous; if it shall appear, that Virgil really celebrates the honours of a man, and not those of a child; that he alludes to things actually come to pass, and not to things still in prospect; and if it can be moreover shewn, that the structure of the poem conforms itself naturally and without violence to the interpretation drawn from the Æneid; then no reasonable doubt can remain, that Virgil designed, in the former poem, to celebrate the same identical personage whom he has so expressly proclaimed in the latter;

Nil oriturum alias, nil ortum tale.*

There will remain no means of eluding the necessity of that conclusion, without some fresh sacrifice of the good sense and prudence of Virgil.

To demonstrate that this is really the case, the course would be direct, were it not for the

Hor. Ep. ii. 1, 17.

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inveteracy of the assumptions in question. But CHAP. the length of time in which those assumptions have been suffered to keep their authority, establishes in them a right to prescribe the order of discussion; and, by claiming for them, in the first instance, an examination of the grounds of that authority, imposes upon us the necessity of pulling down, before we may proceed to build up.

The assumptions here alleged, are thus distinctly stated by Pr. Heyne, who admits them in all their force: "The sum of Virgil's mean"ing (says he) is this; that a period of great "felicity will arise; and that it will commence "from the birth of a boy to be born in the con"sulate of Pollio. The question therefore is, "who was that boy? and what could have in"duced the poet to promise that so great a revo"lution should take place upon his birth?— "Summa sententiarum hæc est; insequuturam

esse temporum felicitatem magnam; eamque " initium habituram esse à natalibus pueri, Pol"lione Cos. nati. Quinam ille puer fuerit, et

quid poëtam adduxerit ut tantam rerum con

CHAP. "versionem co nato insequuturam polliceri posII. "set, Hoc est, quod quæritur.”*

I. With great deference to the learned professor, and to all the other great names above mentioned, but yet with greater deference to Virgil himself, I must contend in limine of the argument, that no such matter is intimated in the fourth Eclogue as the birth of any child in the consulate of Pollio. This assumption, which has been productive of so great an accumulation of error, owes its origin wholly to Servius; and a long series of learned men have condescended to persist in an endeavour to accommodate, not Virgil's text, but Servius's comment. The lines upon which this question depends are these ;

Tu modo nascenti puero (Quo ferrea primum
Desinet, et toto surget gens aurea mundo)
Casta fave Lucina!

Te que adeo, decus hoc æir, Te Consule, inibit
Pollio!

That boy, (with, by,or through) WHOM the iron race shall cease, CHAP.

And yield the world to golden days of peace;

O chaste Lucina, thou but speed his birth!-
Pollio, thine eye shall see the youth assume
That proudest glory of his mighty doom;
And the new age its splendid course shall date
From the bright epoch of thy consulate.

In these lines the poet distinctly mentions three events: 1st, the birth of a boy; 2dly, the rise of a golden age; and, 3dly, the consulate of Pollio. The question is, in what order did he mean to signify that those events would fall? He expressly determines the rise of the golden age to the year of Pollio's consulate, and so far his meaning is incontrovertible; and because Pollio was consul only once, namely, in the year of Rome 714, we can have no difficulty in assigning the year of Rome 714 for the epocha of Virgil's golden age. If now he has determined the rise of that golden age with the same precision to the birth of the child, then certainly all controversy is at end; and all the three events must necessarily coincide. But this is by no means pretended. It is not al

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