429 
of Edinburgh, Session 1881-82. 
These are certainly remarkable verses. The poet tells us, some 
eight lines before this passage, that he is tending towards old age 
( vergimur in senium). Our idea of what old age means has been 
greatly altered, I believe, during the three last centuries. But 
Statius seems to have enjoyed the fulfilment of the wish of a great 
English poet, who desired to live 
Till old experience do attain 
To something like prophetic strain. 
The unbelief foretold by Statius did actually arise. To say 
nothing for the moment of Lyell, even so late as 1816, an Italian 
geologist, Signor Lippi (as 1 have already observed), entirely denied 
that the two cities had been destroyed by the action of Vesuvius. 
In this connection it must be remarked, that the allusion to Sicilian 
flames is not without some measure of significance. .For the serious 
character of the eruptions of Etna was well known. Unlike Vesuvius, 
which had been quiet for many centuries, and which (singularly 
enough) was not included by Pliny in his list of active volcanos, Etna 
had an alarming reputation. Thucydides, in the last chapter of the 
third book of his history, refers to three eruptions of Etna within 
the memory of man, and specifies one as having happened in his own 
day, — in b.c. 425 ; which, he tells us, greatly damaged the property 
of the people of Catana (now Catania). An eruption which happened 
fifty years earlier seems to be referred to by the poet Pindar in his 
first Pythian ode, and by iEschylus, in his Prometheus Bound. The 
volcanic wrath of Etna is also recognised by Virgil and by Lucretius. 
But at this point, a sceptical critic, such as Lyell seems to imagine, 
might naturally enough make a request for something more. He might, 
I conceive, plausibly argue as follows “ For an event which is d 
priori improbable, we demand evidence of extra clearness and cogency. 
This principle is based upon common sense and the experience of life. 
It is admitted by men of science — it is constantly implied and acted 
upon in our law courts. Now you are asking me to accept as true a 
very unheard-of event, and so far what have you produced ? A poet, 
occur in the Sylvse (lib. v. carm. iii. 305 ; lib. iv. carm. viii. 4). In the last 
named passage the poet congratulates Julius Menecrates on the birth of a third 
child : — 
‘ 1 clari genus ecce Menecratis auget 
Tertia jam soboles : procerum tibi nobile vulgus 
Crescit, et insani solatur damna Vesevi.” 
