The fixtlj Book of the ENEID. 45 



and many other forms of wickednefs, whereof the Sybil de- 

 clares it was impoffible for her to give a particular enumeration. 



The punifhments are various. Of one enoi-mous offender^ 

 the entrails are continually devoured by a vulture, and conti- 

 nually growing to be again devoured ; an apt emblem to ex- 

 prefs the pangs of a guilty confcience, and which puts one in 

 mind of the never-dying worm mentioned in Scripture. Some 

 are in the eternal apprehenfion of being crulhed by a black 

 rock, which hangs over them, and feems to be every moment 

 beginning to fall. Some are perpetually employed in rolling a 

 huge mafs of ftone ; fome are ftretched out on a whirling 

 wheel ; and fome, agonifing with eternal hunger, have a fump- 

 tuous banquet fet before them, which they no fooner attempt 

 to touch, than a gigantic fury ftarts up, brandifhing a torch,. 

 and denouncing vengeance in a voice of thunder. 



There is nothing in Virgil more explicit than the account 

 of Tartarus ; and I know not why it has been fo generally mif- 

 underftood. Dr Warburton fays, in one place, that Eneas 

 faw the fights of Tartarus at a diftance, and, in another, that 

 Eneas pafled through Tartarus. In fadt, he did neither. He 

 could not pafs through without entering ; and this, we are told, 

 was to him impoffible : " Nulli fas caflo fceleratum infiftere 

 " limen." And though he had been permitted to enter, he 

 eould not pafs through, without firft croffing a river of fire, 

 and then defcending into an immenfe gulph, twice as deep be- 

 neath the level of the other regions of darknefs, as thofe are 

 remote from heaven. It was equally impoffible for him to fee 

 from a diftance what was doing in fuch a gulph, even though 

 the gate that led to it had been open, which, however, at this 

 time, happened to be fliut. " You fee, faid the Sybil, what a 

 " centinel fits without in the porch, (meaning Tifiphone) ;. 

 " another, ftill more dreadful, has her ftation within ;" which, 

 as he could not fee it, ffie informs him is a huge ferpent, or 

 hydra, with, fifty heads. An opening of the gate is indeed 



mentioned,. 



