Storm was in its fury, any allusion had been imfor which reason I the rather cite it. While the in this poem, and one of the longest in the whole;

Ac, veluti magno in populo cum sæpe coorta est
Seditio, sævitque animis ignobile vulgus f

Jamque faces, et saxa volant furor arma ministrat;
volant/furor
Tum, pietate gravem aç merilis si forte virum quem
Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant:
Ille regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet:
Sic cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor, æquora postquam
Prospiciens genitor, caloque invectus aperto
Flettit equos, curruque volans dat lora secundo.

This is the first similitude which Virgil makes

one of

has inboed his own life it. Millim

Breed has remarked

This I have observed of his similitudes in general, viewed his work: but faults are no precedents, have contracted them, had he lived to have reis blamed for both; and I doubt not but he would

that they are not placed, as our unobserving cri-
ticks tell us, in the heat of any action, but com-
monly in its declining: when he has warmed us
in his description, as much as possibly he can,
then, lest that warmth should languish, he renews
it by some apt similitude, which illustrates his
subject, and yet palls not his audience. I need
give your Lordship but one example of this kind,
and leave the rest to your observation, when next
you review the whole ÆNEIS in the original, un-
blemished by my rude translation. It is in the
first book, where the poet describes Neptune
composing the ocean, on which Æolus had raised
a tempest, without his permission. He had already
chidden the rebellious winds, for obeying the
commands of their usurping master; he had
warned them from the seas; he had beaten down
the billows with his mace; dispelled the clouds,
restored the sunshine, while Triton and Cymo-
thoe were heaving the ships from off the quick-
sands, before the poet would offer at a similitude
for illustration:

Ac, veluti magno in populo cum sæpe coorta est
Seditio, sævitque animis ignobile vulgus ;

Jamque faces, et saxa volant; furor arma ministrat ;
Tum, pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quèm
Conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant:
Ille regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet:
Sic cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor, æquora postquam
Prospiciens genitor, cæloque invectus aperto
Flectit equos, curruque volans dat lora secundo.

This is the first similitude which Virgil makes

Bryden has corr heed introduced Wefore it it in the find Aneid, or Milbrame has remached.

one of his orn

in this poem, and one of the longest in the whole; for which reason I the rather cite it. While the storm was in its fury, any allusion had been improper; for the poet could have compared it to nothing more impetuous than itself: consequently he could have made no illustration. If he could have illustrated, it had been an ambitious ornament out of season, and would have diverted our concernment nunc non erat his locus; and therefore he deferred it to its proper place.

These are the criticisms of most moment, which have been made against the NEIS by the ancients or moderns. As for the particular exceptions against this or that passage, Macrobius and Pontanus have answered them already. If I desired to appear more learned than I am, it had been as easy for me to have taken their objections and solutions, as it is for a country parson to take the expositions of the fathers out of Junius and Tremellius; or not to have named the authors from whence I had them: for so Ruæus, otherwise a most judicious commentator on Virgil's works, has used Pontanus, his greatest benefactor; of whom he is very silent, and I do not remember that he once cites him.

What follows next, is no objection; for that implies a fault and it had been none in Virgil, if he had extended the time of his action beyond a year at least Aristotle has set no precise limits to it. Homer's, we know, was within two months; Tasso, I am sure, exceeds not a summer: and if I

examined him, perhaps he might be reduced into a much less compass. Bossu leaves it doubtful, whether Virgil's action were within the year, or took up some months beyond it. Indeed, the whole dispute is of no more concernment to the common reader, than it is to a ploughman, whether February this year had twenty-eight or twenty-nine days in it. But for the satisfaction of the more curious, of which number I am sure your Lordship is one, I will translate what I think convenient out of Segrais, whom perhaps you have not read; for he has made it highly probable that the action of the ENEIS began in the spring, and was not extended beyond the autumn: and we have known campaigns that have begun sooner, and have ended later.

Ronsard, and the rest whom Segrais names, who are of opinion that the action of this poem takes up almost a year and half, ground their calculation thus. Anchises died in Sicily at the end of winter, or beginning of the spring: Æneas, immediately after the interment of his father, puts to sea for Italy: he is surprized by the tempest described in the beginning of the first book; and there it is, that the scene of the poem opens, and where the action must commence. He is driven by this storm on the coasts of Africk: he stays at Carthage all that summer, and almost all the winter following; sets sail again for Italy just before the beginning of the spring; meets with contrary winds, and makes Sicily the second time: this

part of the action completes the year. Then he celebrates the anniversary of his father's funerals, and shortly after arrives at Cumes; and from thence his time is taken up in his first treaty with Latinus; the overture of the war; the siege of his camp by Turnus; his going for succours to relieve it; his return; the raising of the siege by the first battle; the twelve days' truce; the second battle; the assault of Laurentum, and the single fight with Turnus; all which, they say, cannot take up less than four or five months more; by which account we cannot suppose the entire action to be contained in a much less compass than a year and half.

Segrais reckons another way; and his computation is not condemned by the learned Ruæus, who compiled and published the commentaries on our poet, which we call the Dauphin's Virgil. He allows the time of year when Anchises died, to be in the latter end of winter, or the beginning of the spring; he acknowledges that when Æneas is first seen at sea afterwards, and is driven by the tempest on the coast of Africk, is the time when the action is naturally to begin: he confesses farther, that Æneas left Carthage in the latter end of winter; for Dido tells him in express terms, as an argument for his longer stay,

Quin etiam hiberno moliris sidere classem.

But whereas Ronsard's followers suppose, that when Æneas had buried his father, he set sail