ADVERTISEMENT. IN reading feveral paffages of the Prophet Ifaiah, which foretel the coming of Chrift and the felicities attending it, I could not but obferve a remarkable parity between many of the thoughts, and those in the Pollio of Virgil. This will not feem furprising, when we reflect, that the Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same subject. One may judge that Virgil did not copy it line by line, but felected fuch ideas as beft agreed with the nature of pastoral poetry, and disposed them in that manner which ferved moft to beautify his piece. I have endeavoured the fame in this imitation of him, though without admitting any thing of my own; fince it was written with this particular view, that the reader, by comparing the feveral thoughts, might fee how far the images and descriptions of the Prophet are fuperior to thofe of the Poet. But as I fear I have prejudiced them by my management, I fhall fubjoin the paffages of Ifaiah, and thofe of Virgil, under the fame difadvantage of a literal tranflation*. POPE. * As Pope made ufe of the old tranflation of Ifaiah in the paffages which he fubjoined, it was thought proper to use the fame, and not have recourfe to the more accurate and more animated version of Bishop Lowth. The fpurioufnefs of thofe Sibylline verfes which have been applied to our Saviour, has been so fully demonftrated by many able and judicious critics, that, I imagine, they will not be again adduced as proofs of the truth of the Chriftian Religion, by any found and conclufive reafoner. The learned Heyne has discussed this point in his notes on the fecond eclogue of Virgil, p. 73. v. I.; and he adds an opinion about prophecy in general, too remarkable to be omitted, but of too delicate a nature to be quoted in any words but his own. "Scilicet inter omnes populos, magna imprimis calamitate oppreffos, Vaticinia circumferri folent, quæ five graviora minari, five lætiora folent polliceri, eaque, neceffariâ rerum viciffitudine, melioribus aliquando fuccedentibus temporibus, ferè femper eventum habent. Nullo tamen tempore vaticiniorum infanius fuit ftudium, quàm fub extrema Republicæ Romanæ tempora, primofque imperatores; cum bellorum civilium calamitateshominum animos terroribus omnis generis agitatos; ad varia portentorum prodigiorum, et vaticiniorum ludibria convertiffent. Quafcunque autem hoc in genere defcriptiones, novæ felicitatis. habemus, five in Orientis five in Græcis et Romanis poetis, omnes inter fe fimiles. funt: beftiæ ac feræ cicures, ferpentes innocui, fruges nullo cultû enatæ, mare placidum, dii prefentes in terris, aliaque ejufmodi in omnibus memorantur." In contradiction to this opinion the reader is defired to turn to as remarkable a paffage at the end of the twenty-firft of Bifhop Lowth's excellent Lectures on the Hebrew Poetry. WARTON. |