Jncient Epic Poem, VIS 



those stubborn materials as to defy moral, I 

 should mention one leading object of the 

 yEneid with more ass'irancc ; that he intended 

 to flatter his own nation in the character of 

 iheir supposed progenitor and topcrsuade tlicm, 

 that the empire, which thejr had usurped over 

 the rights of natioas, was founded in. the im- 

 mutable decrees of the Fates. 



L'pon the whole it does not appear, that 

 Homer at all, and Virgil very little, if at ail, 

 wrote under the influence of a re'ined and 

 jsubtle moral. Of xither epic poets among the 

 ancients, if epic poets they may be called, 

 such as Lucan and Statius, it is hardly pre- 

 tended, and therefore this moral, which is so 

 interwoven with the flne-spun theory of the 

 critics, from Aristotle down to Bossu, to which 

 the whole poem is to be subservient and for 

 which all the celestial machirjery is provided, 

 may be little better than a dream, like the 

 allegorical creation of the- gods, who act so 

 distinguished a part in the ancient Epopcea, 

 which is to be the subject of our next ex- 

 amination. 



p *i 



