50 REMARKS on fame Parages of 



conjedtures. This is owing, not to obfcurity in the poet, but 

 to the i-efinement of thofe interpreters, who miflook a plain 

 paflage for a profound allegory, and were determined to find a 

 fee ret meaning in it. The gate of ivory, fay they, tranfmits 

 falfe dreams, and that of horn true ones ; and Eneas and his 

 companion are difmiffed from Elyfium, and let into the upper 

 world, throvigh the ivory gate. What can this imply, but that 

 the poet meant to infinuate, that every thing he had faid con- 

 cerning a ftate of future retribution, was nothing more than a 

 fallacious dream ? And, in fupport of this conjedture, they ge- 

 nerally quote from the Georgia three verfes to prove, that 

 Virgil was in his heart an Epicurean, and confequently difbe- 

 lieved both a future ftate and a providence. The verfes are — 

 " Eelix qui potuit rerum cognofcere caufas, Atque metus om- 

 " nes, et inexorabile fatum, Subjecit pedibus, ftrepitumque 

 " Acherontis avari." 



Now, in the firjl place, it does not appear to me, that thefe 

 lines can prove their author ever to have been an Epicurean, or 

 that he meant to fay more than " Happy is the -man whofe 

 " mind philofophy has raifed above the fear of death, as well 

 " as above all other fears." For, in the Georgic, he not only 

 recommends religion and prayer, which Epicureans could not 

 do confiftently with their principles, but again and again aflerts 

 a providence ; and, in terms equally elegant and juft, vindi- 

 cates the Divine wlfdom in eftablifliing phyfical evil as the 

 means of improving and elevating the mind of man. But does 

 he not, in his fixth eclogue, give an account of the formation 

 of the world according to the Epicurean theory ? He does ; 

 and he makes it part of the fong of a drunkard : no proof that 

 he held it in very high efteem. 



But, idly, Suppofing our poet's admiration of Lucretius 

 might have made him formerly partial to the tenets of Epicu- 

 rus, it does not follow that he continued fo to the end of his 



life, 



