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~ berally for his matchlefs encomium 
on the younger Marcellus. Had 
_ this indeed been his meaning, all the 
° 
MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS. 
with itfelf, in order to give it as 
much as poflible the appearance of 
ferioufnefs and truth. We know, 
that the fcenery of the fixth book is 
wholly fictitious; but the Romans 
did not certainly know how far it 
might be fo: founded as it was on 
ancient tradition, which no hiftory 
they had conld overturn; and on 
_philofophical opinions, which they 
had never heard confuted, and which, 
where Revelation was unknown, 
might feem refpectable, on accoynt 
of the abilities of Pythagoras, Plato, 
and other great men who had taught 
them. 
To which I’may add, 474), as an 
argument decifive of the ‘/prefent 
gueftion, That if Virgil wifhed his 
countrymen to believe him to have 
been zof in earneft in what he had 
told them of a pre-exiftent and fu- 
ture ftate, he muft alfo have wifhed 
- them to underftand, that the compli- 
ments he had been paying to the 
moft favourite characters among 
their anceftors were equally infin- 
cere; and that what he had {aid of 
the virtues of Camillus, Brutus, 
Cato, Scipio, and even Augutftus 
himfelf, was altogether vifionary, 
and had as gooda right to a pafiage 
through the ivory gate, as any other 
falfehood. Had Oétavia underflood 
_ this to be the poet’s meaning, fhe 
would not have rewarded him fo li- 
Yatter part of the fixth book would 
have been a ftudied infult on Au- 
" guitus, and the other heroes there 
‘teelebrated, as well as on the whole 
‘ n people. Strange, that the 
~ moft judicious writer in the world 
Ahould commit fuch a blunder in the 
moft elaborate part of apoem which 
had confecrated to the honour of 
ie Vou. XXXIL 
113 
his country, and particularly to that 
of his great patron Auguitus! 
We muft therefore admit, either. 
that Virgil had loft his fenfes, or, 
which is more probable, that, in 
fending Eneasand the Sybil through 
the ivory gate, he intended no far- 
caftic reflection either on his coun- 
try or on his poetry. In a word, 
we muft admit, that, in this part of 
his fable, he was juf& as much in 
earneft as in any other; and that 
there was no more joke in Eneas’s 
ofcent through the gate of ivery,- 
than in his defcent through the cave 
of Avernus. How then are we to 
underfland this adventure of the 
gate? I anfwer, By making the poet 
his own interpreter, and not feeking 
to find things im his book which we 
have no good reafon to think were 
ever in his head. 
Jn the nineteenth book of the 
Odyfiey, Penelope, fpeaking of 
dreams, fays to her nurfe, that there 
are two gates by which they are 
tranfmitted to us; one made of 
horn, through which the true dreams 
pafs, and the other of ivory, which 
emits falfe dreams. This thought 
Homer probably derived from fome 
Egyptiancuftom or tradition, which 
one might difcufs with many quo- 
tations and much appearance of 
learning ; and this, no doubt, gave 
Virgil the hint of the paffage how 
before us, But Virgil’s account 
differs from Homer’s more than the 
commentators feem to be:aware of.. 
Homer does not fay in what part of 
the world his gates are; Virgil’s are 
in Italy, not far from Cuma, and 
are faid to be the outlet from Ely- 
fium into the upper world: a wild 
fiion no doubr, but not more wild 
than that of making the cave of 
Avernus the inlet from the upper 
world into the nether. Homer's 
1 gates 
