1807.] 
grave and majestic style, the uniform 
simplicity and impressive verse of Virgil, 
have always attached the ear at all 
susceptible of harmony and cadence: 
while his style, abounding less in idio- 
matic turns and familiar expressions, so 
pleasing, but often so difficult in other 
classics, has rendered the Poet of Man- 
taa infinitely more easy of comprehen- 
sion. The lives of the Augustan Poets 
are also more within the reach of inquiry. 
The number of contemporary writers, 1n 
that fertile age, will enable us to proceed: 
on such certain data, as to leave little 
room for conjecture or uncertainty. 
Attempts were made,however,to cast even 
on the tranquil and sedentary life of 
Virgil the same marvellous incidents, 
and the same mysterious veil, which have 
obscured the life and writings of Homer; 
and the fables of Donatus may at least 
vie with those of Herodotus. The zeal 
and undistinguishing applause of their 
admirers have induced them to detail 
circumstances, which never happened to 
those to whom they are attributed. The 
sight appearance of truth, which some- 
tines breaks through the mist, 1s so dis- 
guised by fabulous tales, as to spread an 
air of improbability over the whole. It 
should seem to have been the settled 
6pinion of these ancient encomuiasts, 
that wature could not preduce a great 
genius, without discovering, by some 
miracle at his birth, what the world was: 
afterwards to expect from.him. And, 
what is still worse, they seldom agree in 
the numerous fictions which they as- 
cribe to their subjects; but each applies 
to them incidents, which he either ima-_ 
zines had, or ought to have, happened to 
them. By-such means, they occasion an 
obseurity and confusion, not easily un- 
ravelled by those who endeavour to write 
with certainty or probability. 
Publius Virgilus Maro flourished in 
the time of Augustus Cesar, and was 
born at the village of Andes, near Man- 
tua, in the year of Rome, 683. His 
mother’s name was Maja; and as a spe- 
cimen of the fictions in which his ad- 
mirers indulged, it may be related, that 
she dreamt ot having been delivered of 
an olive-branch, which was no sooner 
set in the ground, than it took root, and 
sprang up into a tree abounding with 
fruit and blossoms. Going out the next 
day to a neighbouring village with her 
husband, she was compelled to stop by 
the way, and was delivered in a ditch. 
A branch of poplar (according to the 
custom of the country was planted on 
the spot, and grew so fast, that it soon 
The Life and Poems of Virgil. | 443 
reached the size of the trees that were 
near, and had been planted long before. 
The poplar was, in the sequel, named 
after hin, and consecrated to his fame. 
At seven years of age, he was sent to 
Cremona, a flourishing Roman colony ; 
from which he removed to Miian. There 
he apptied himself to the study of the 
Greek janguage, and most probably of 
the Poems of Homer, of which he after- 
wards so largely availed himself. His 
studies are also said to have coreprized 
physics, mathematics, and philosophy. 
fn the last he was mstructed by Syro the 
Epicurean, whose opinions he appears to 
have embraced, when he wrote the 6th 
eclogue, inscribed to Varus, Dryden, 
in the preface to his pastorals, appears to 
doubt this assertion: but it may certainly 
be collected fromm some passages in Ci- 
cero, who affirms that Syro was an ex 
cellent philosopher, and one of the great- 
est of the Epicurean sect, and that his 
doctrines were much in vogue in Rome, 
and adopted by the most eminent men. 
Though Virgil’s better sense, and maturer 
judgment, might probably afterwards in- 
duce him to forsake the Epicurean 
for the Platonic philosophy; yet it ap- 
pears that when he wrote the Georgics, 
he still adhered to the tenets of the for- 
mer, as may be inferred from the well- 
known passage, 
-Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, 
Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum 
Subjecit pedibus—estrepitumque Acherontis 
avarl. | 
After sometime spent in his studies, his 
curiosity and desire of knowledge, led 
him to travel through Italy, when, it is 
supposed, he went to Rome. 
said, he published hissixth Eclogue, which 
Roscius rehearsing on the stage, Cicero, 
in admiration, called its author, Mugne 
spes altera Rome; implying, probably, 
that he himself, on account of his clo~ 
quence and political talents, was the 
first. But this account has been justly 
disputed, and it is more consonant with 
history, and with what he himself says in. 
the first Eclogue, to presume that he 
had not seen Rome, till the time of the 
division of lands, which Augustus dis- 
tributed to his soldiers; by which the 
Poet, being involved in the common ca-. 
lamity, lost his patrimony. Bayle has 
also detected in this account an error in 
chronology, for he has satisfactorily 
proved, that Virgil did not write his Bu- 
colics till after the trumvirate of Oc- 
tavius, Antony and Lepidus; during 
which, itis well known, that Cicero was 
barbarously murdered. 
3L2 When 
Here, it is 
