corrupting good books. Alas, what would come of the trade, if fuch persons were put to filence? To any critick of the first class, who is tempted to fhew his indignation against fuch pretenders, I humbly offer this advice. Take care, that the republick of learning receive no detriment, and call offenders to account: But, do it civilly, and gently, that they may continue to furnish you with opportunities of exercising your power, and of difplaying your skill: Sunt quibus imperes. See Mifcell. Obfervat. Vol. I. 383, and the Preface to that volume. CRITICAL CRITICAL REMARKS ON MODERN AUTHORS. BEAUMONT. Gleanings of Antiquities, by John Beaumont. "A DISCOURSE on the Oracles of the Sibyls." "As I look on VIRGIL in his Paftorals to have had an eye to religion and church difpenfations, and its paftors, as well as to civil affairs; fo I conceive in his fourth eclogue his chief design was to celebrate that inward birth which attends a regeneration, after a fpiritual death, which must first be undergone. I am inclined to think, that many of the Gentiles became partakers of this fpiritual death, and new birth. I find it fo in Virgil, in his Bucolics, Georgics, and Æneid. He hath celebrated this new birth, in which himfelf and many other of the Gentiles were initiated." “That Virgil, and many of the Gentiles, had a taste and the highest esteem for this fpiritual happinefs, fufficiently appears from what they have. fet forth concerning it. That the Elenfine Myfteries had regard to the life to come, and the state after death, appears from Euripides, Aristophanes, and Sophocles." "If we look into Virgil's Georgies, we shall find many paffages there, which fhew him to be acquainted with the fpiritual death, and new birth. Quicquid eris, nam te nec fperent Tartara regem, &c. Quamvis Elyfios miretur Græcia campos, &c. "Now these verses manifeftly fhew, that fome Sibyl had led Virgil through the fubterraneous regions, as the Sibyl had carried Eneas and other heroes thither: for, as our learned Sanford obferves, in his work De defcenfu Chrifti ad inferos, "No great man occurs in the poets, but he fometime defcended into hell." "And Virgil, in his fixth Eneid, admirably fets forth this tranfaction, and the labour that attends it." Now "Now, to explain this tranfaction, it is to be confidered, that the Hades of the ancient Gentiles fignified both the place of the Elyfian Fields, and the place of punishment of the wicked; Or, properly, "the invifible world," or "the invisible state of the mind after a corporal or fpiritual death." And, as it is a priestly function to bring men acquainted with the invifible world, or ftate, and to aid them in paffing to it; fo, by the Sybil, we must understand fome prieft or clergyman." "As for the ramus aureus, which must be carried as a prefent to Proferpina,-I have explained it in the second part of my "Confiderations on Dr. Burnet's Theory of the Earth." From these and other paffages in the book of this crack-brained philofopher, it should seem that he looked upon the Defcent of Eneas, as upon an Initiation. But he doth not pursue the thought; he lets it drop, and runs after his New Birth, which he fees in every corner. He should have told us whether, in his opinion, Theocritus had the fame fpiritual and myftical views in his Idyllia, and in the obfcanities contained in them, which Virgil had in his Eclogues, His explaining the fecond eclogue of Virgil, in a religious fenfe, is incomparable. BOILE A U*. BOILEAU fays, in the Preface to his works, pas moins "Voici encore une penfée qui n'est fauffe, ni par conféquent moins froide. Elle eft de Benferade, dans fes Metamorphofes en Rondeaux; où, parlant du déluge envoyé par les Dieux pour châtier l'infolence de l'homme, il s'exprime ainfi; Dieu lava bien la tête a fon image. Peut on, à propos d'une auffi grande chofe que le déluge dire rien de plus petit, ni de plus ridicule que ce quolibet? dont la penfée eft d'autant plus fauffe en toutes manieres, que le Dieu dont il s'agit en cet endroit,—céft Jupiter, qui n'a jamais paffé chez les payens pour avoir fait l'homme a fon image. L'homme dans la fable, étant, comme tout le monde fait, l'ouvrage de Promethee." Extracted from the Mifcell. Obfervat. Vol. I. p. 302. Benferade |