fails; you are quite disappointed, and find it a mere abortion. The novo veterum turns out a poor collision, without one spark to follow from it. This, and nothing less than this, is implied in the Doctor's charge against the poet. Burman, in his edition of Virgil, mentions this remark of Doctor Pearce, and owns that Servius says nothing to the purpose on the difficulty.. • Servius etiam laborat in hoc epitheto explicando.' - Burman takes no notice, indeed, of one part of the criticism; the impropriety of using an antithesis of expression on such a subject, but he labors very hard to make out that the antithesis is a real one, and that Doctor Pearce is wrong in saying, that the epithet novo is sine ullo sensu, and endeavours to give a sense to it, by imputing several different mistakes to Anchises; and to make way for our believing so, he begins by telling us, that Anchises was but a doting sort of an old fellow, who had lost his memory; • credo, Anchisen, obliviosum senem, voluisse dicere, se olim quidem de Hesperia ex monitu Cassandræ aliquid inaudivisse, sed nunc ex Apollinis oraculo obscuro et dubio, novo errore fuisse deceptum, quum Antiquam Matrem interpretatus esset de Teucro, qui ex Cretâ coloniam duxerat in Troada, quum debuisset de Dardano explicare, qui ante Teucrum eo adpulerat, et Dardaniam condiderat. Anchises had heard something, he says, of Italy, from Cassandra; but, by a new, or a second mistake, he had misunderstood Apollo. But where is the first mistake? he had, indeed, never paid any regard at all to Cassandra's information; but how can that be called error locorum ?— novo veterum deceptum errore locorum.' But it is needless, indeed, to enter into the particulars of this kind of defence of Burman's; the whole passage in Virgil, when viewed together, plainly shows, that such a defence can have no place; for the Penates inform Æneas, that Apollo had meant he should settle in Italy, as his mother-country: they bid him rise, and tell his father this Surge, age, et hæc læta longavo dicta parenti · Haud dubitanda refer. He does so: Anchisem facio certum, remque ordine pando. Upon which Anchises Agnovit prolem ambiguam, geminosque parentes, It is plain, then, that what Anchises says here, refers solely to his mistake of the meaning of Apollo, and has nothing at all to do with what Cassandra had told him of old; nay, what is much more, when he was making this confession of his mistake, he had not so much as recollected yet Cassandra's former prophecy; he does not do that till afterwards, as is manifest from the words next following: Tum memorat: Nate, Iliacis exércite futis, Nunc repeto; hæc generi portendere debita nostro ; Sed quis ad Hesperia venturos littora Teucros Where the tum memorat, and the nunc repeto, now I recollect, make it perfectly evident, that in what he had said before, Cassandra was not yet in his thoughts; besides, from the last verse, Quem tum vates Cassandra moveret ? it is plain, that he paid no regard at all to what Cassandra told him, and so it cannot be said that she had led him into any mistake about the place destined for their settlement. Burman tries farther to make out another mistake of Anchises, but either I do not understand him, or he contradicts himself: his words, which follow immediately after what was already quoted from him, are these: Et quia etiam quidam Dardanum ex Cretâ deduxerunt, inde in errorem deductum. Nimirum, Anchises de Cretâ accipiebat, Dardano omisso, de Teucro cogitans; et quia Trojani, et Teucri et Dardanidæ dicuntur, proles erat ambigua, et geminus Parens! In the first of these two sentences, if I understand them, he means, some maintained that Dardanus had come from Crete; and that led Anchises to take Crete for their mother country. In the next sentence, which is to explain the former, he says: Anchises took Crete for their mother country; because he forgot Dardanus, and thought only of Teucer; nimirum, Anchises de Cretâ accipiebat, Dardano omisso, de Teucro cogitans.' But if he were ever so consistent with himself here, the whole makes nothing to the purpose, for still Anchises makes but one mistake of Crete for Italy; were there ever so many concurring causes which had led him into that mistake, and though it were granted that one of these causes was this particular opinion, which some held, that Dardanus had come originally from Crete; but there is not indeed any ground for the supposition, as Anchises makes no mention of it, when he interprets the oracle, and enumerates very fully the several causes which made him think that by their mother-country Apollo meant Crete, viz. mount Ida had its name from the Cretan Ida; King Teucer their ancestor had come from thence; and from thence they had got their religion, the rites of Cybele, the ceremo nies of the Corybantes, the grove of Ida, the mysteries of the Magna Mater; and the procession of her chariot drawn by Lions. Tum Genitor, veterum volvens monumentà virorum, Maximus unde Pater, si rite audita recordor, Among all which circumstances of their origin from Crete, there is not the least mention of Dardanus. After what I have just observed, it is scarce worth while to take notice of the third and last way Burman takes, to find a meaning to the novus error, if it were not just to show how much he must have been graveled in this passage: deinde,' says he, quia error locorum, non virorum dicitur, posset dici Anchises errâsse de monte Idâ, qui quum æquè in Creta esset, atque in Troade, hinc cunabula gentis inde credebat repetenda,' he means, I suppose, that Anchises had both made a mistake of persons and of places; he had thought of Teucer when he should have thought of Dardanus; and he had made a second mistake, a novus error, about the two mount Idas. This might give a sort of meaning to the epithet novus, which he is laboring for; but it would give a very sorry meaning to the pas sage in general; if, to wit, by the veterum locorum were meant the two mountains, but it is needless to enter into particulars here; as it is, I think, self-evident, that veterum locorum must undoubtedly be meant of Crete and Italy. For the sense is evidently this; that Anchises acknowledged the Trojans had two several Ancestors, who came from these two different mother countries. So that, notwithstanding all Burman's well-meant pains to vindicate the poet from at least one part of the censure, Dr. Pearce, it would seem, has reason to think, that, his criticism, severe as it is, remains in its full force; and that Virgil is guilty of a premeditated, and yet a meaningless, puerility. But, can one really believe, that Virgil could be, deliberately, guilty, of affecting such a pitiful, still-born conceit? Is it not in writing as in life? there are, in both, some characters far beyond the imputation of being capable of a gross violation of the Kalon: such a character, if any, is Virgil; and such an imputation, surely, is this. Is it not far better for a critic, when he meets, in a first rate writer, a passage which sug gests to him an apprehension of this kind, to distrust himself, and suspect he does not understand the passage; and much more so, in a work, where several difficulties confessedly occur; especially. with respect to the uncommon turns of expression? For, though the general run of Virgil's language is more easy, as well as it is more musical, than that of any other Roman poet, or, indeed, of any poet who has written in Latin; yet, at times, we find in him some very uncommon turns of expression, which have not been always equally well attended to by his commentators. And, there fore, when a passage, at first view, seems to imply a fault, sọ gross as to be altogether incompatible with the character of a poet the most admired of any for delicacy of taste and accuracy of judgment; I imagine, the best thing which a critic can do is, to distrust himself rather than suspect the poet; and examine well, whether there may not be some word, or some expression, which, in its most ordinary acceptation, conveys that sense which gives occasion to his criticism, but yet is taken sometimes in another sense, which may clear the passage of all difficulty: and this, I imagine, is very remarkably the case in these two lines of Virgil. Deceptum errore, deceived by a mistake, appears, to be sure, very readily, to be the sense here. But yet, error does not always signify a mistake; in Virgil, it means sometimes a travelling by sea, or land; a voyage, or journey; as when Deiphobus asks Æneas how he came alive to the Shades. Pelagine venis erroribus actus. and, when Dido asks neas to relate his adventures; Immo age, et à primá, dic, Hospes, origine, nobis : Insidias, inquit, Danaum, casusque tuorum, Erroresque tuos. and so, in the passage I am upon, to me it seems beyond all doubt, that, by novo errore is meant errore Teucri. Dardanus had made the first voyage, the first adventure, the primus error, in search of a settlement; Teucer made a second, a later, or a novus error; and this had deceived Anchises. And thus, the epithet novus is no way meant as an antithesis to veterum locorum; but, in distinction to the prior voyage of Dardanus. So far the sense appears, to mé at least, clear, and just, and liable to no criticism. But this is not all; the remaining words of this verse make a further difficulty in the expression, by being in an uncommon construction‹ Anchises. agnovit se deceptum veterum locorum,' owned himself mistaken in these ancient countries- novo Errore Teucri' by that second voyage of Teucer. Deceptum veterum locorum is, I say, an uncommon expression; which has contributed to the difficulty of the passage, and to the mistake of Dr. Pearce: but yet, it is an a expression, to which another exactly parallel is to be found in a poet of the same rank with Virgil, for elegance and taste. I mean in Horace, in the ode upon his escape from the fall of the tree; where he is giving a dignity to his own art, and insinuating his importance as a poet, by describing the veneration in which the Greek lyric poets were held among the shades. The charm, says he, of Alcæus' poetry beguiles even the guilty of their tortures. "ไ Quin et Prometheus, et Felopis parens Dulci laborum decipitur sono. Here, I say, the expression, Prometheus decipitur laborum, dulci sono Alcæi, is exactly parallel to the expression, Agnovit se deceptum locorum, novo errore Teucri. And thus, I think, the poet may fairly be vindicated from so positive, and, at the same time, so very severe a censure.' There is besides another kind of objection, which has likewise been made to this very passage of Virgil; and which I shall also endeavour to remove. Ruæus, and others, have taxed Virgil with want of judgment in the conduct of this part of his poem: for, say they, Anchises and Æneas ought to have been sensible of this mistake long before; and that, most especially, from the farewell words of Creusa to Æneas, when her shade appeared to him, on the night of the destruction of Troy, and, not only told him of Hesperia by name, but marked out its particular situation, by the river Tiber; for, says she, Ad terram Hesperiam venies, ubi Lydius, arva Burman, who likewise mentions this objection, fairly owns that he does not well know what to say to it; he thinks less of Anchises, as an oblivious old man, but seems to wonder that Æneas should forget it, nescio quid dicam?' says he, certe Æneas non debuerat oblitus esse,' then, he, modestly enough, offers two solutions, by way of guess or conjecture. Shall we think, says he, that Æneas Deceptum Laborum.) Several other such uncommon expressions occur both in Virgil and Horace, as well as in other Roman poets; a number of which kind, collected by Nonius Marcellus, are cited by Torrentius, in a very sensible note he gives on the words of Horace B. 3. Ode last. 5. 2. ·Daunus agrestium Regnavit Populorum ; of which note, what follows is an extract. 'Regnavit Populorum) Sic prisci quoque interpretes legerunt, nec primus hunc locum ex Servio restituit Lambinus. Libri tamen MS. onines, quos videre contigit, Regnator habent: tantum potuit Grammaticorum audacia. Solent autem nobiles poetæ hujusmodi locutionibus hic illic aspersis excitare Lectorem ; idque vel subaudiendo aliquid, vel imitatione Græcorum.. Tale illud A still more copious collection of such expressions is to be found in Ruddiman's Latin Grammar. Vol. 2. p. 115. &c. |