―243―

Remarks on a Passage in Virgil.

VISITING my friend Crito,
lately, I found him in his
closet poring over a collection of
metrical romances, by some of the
old Troubadours. I could not help
censuring that perverse taste which
could find pleasure in the monsters
and prodigies of the Gothic ro-
mance, and expressed much con-
tempt for their incredible exploits,
their absurd images, their lame al-
legory, their spells, and giants, and
winged dragons, their halls of gold,
and their bridges of glass.

“How can I help myself?” re-
plied my friend. “I love poetry.
If I cannot find it separate from
these follies and absurdities, I must
take them together. I am shocked
by the incongruities you mention;
but since every maker of verse
supposes himself under a necessity
of spurning at probability and com-

mon sense, and adorning his tale
with the creatures of vulgar super-
stition, I must indure it as well as
I can, and draw pleasure from his vi-
vid colouring, his prolific inven-
tion, and the music of his num-
bers.”

“Surely,” said I, “all poets are
not liable to this censure. You
have been unlucky in your choice.
You waste that time among the
rabble of Provençal ballad-mongers,
which should be devoted to the
great masters of the art; to those
who join a pure taste with their
rich invention, enlightened prin-
ciples of morals, thorough skill in
pourtraying the passions, and know-
ledge of the laws of composition;
whose descriptions flow from ob-
servation, whose images are chaste
and correct, and whose language
is, at once, musical and pictur-
esque.”

“And pray, where are such peo-
ple to be met with?”

“Your question surprises me.
If I did not know that you are a
classical scholar, and if I did not
see Virgil and Lucretius lying on
that shelf, I should be less surpris-
ed.”

“Virgil and Lucretius? Are
these then your patterns of enlight-
ened morals, pure taste, and im-
maculate chastity?”

“Assuredly. Have you any
fault to find with them?”

“Nay, I should be glad to know
wherein the Æneid is superior to
the stories of the Tuscan and Pro-
venccedil;als, and particularly to the
fairy tale of Spenser. I grant you,
it is longer and more complex than
the plots of Gothic story-tellers
generally are; but in dignity of mo-
ral principles, in congruity of me-
taphors, and the consistency of
their incidents with probability and
truth, I am far from perceiving
the superiority of Attics and Ro-
mans to the historiographers of
Arthur and Roland.”

―244―

“I know your temper,” said I,
“you love paradox and singulari-
ty; but surely you have chosen an
unlucky topic, on which to display
your singularity.”

“Very likely. I am no classi-
cal scholar. I read Virgil with
unlearned eyes. Being gifted with
no preternatural sagacity, and hav-
ing no prejudice in favour of one
scheme of superstition and folly
over another, I regard the mira-
cles and fictions of the Roman
poets, just as I do those of the
Saxon or Welsh. I find in them
both puerilities and contradictions,
ridiculous solemnity, and misplac-
ed reverence; but am far from dis-
covering less impertinence and
nonsense in Virgil than in Spenser.
Creatures in human shape that ride
in chariots through the air, or sit
in a circle at the bottom of the sea,
singing songs and knitting flowers,
or that glide along the surface in a
two-wheeled carriage, drawn by
dolphins: trees that bear apples
and peaches of gold, that distil
human blood, and that speak: gi-
ants with one eye in their fore-
head: a witch that can shew the
way to hell, and unsold future
events: dogs with three heads:
arms forged by a god: omens, pre-
dictions, and oracles without num-
ber: men that are carried from
place to place through the air, and
that can make themselves visible
or invisible at pleasure; that visit,
while alive, the abode of the dead,
and see and converse with not only
those who died an hundred years
before, but those who are destined
to come into existence a thousand
years after! All these are silly in-
congruities, which do not the less
offend me because they are found
in the Æneid of Virgil.

“There is the book: take it
down and read a passage. Perhaps,
with your assistance, I may discover
beauties and graces that are invisible
to common and unlearned eyes.”

I took down the book as he di-
rected, and opening it, at random,
lighted on the description of Æolus
and the prison of the winds.
“Here,” said I, “is a description
which is much celebrated. I would
be glad to hear your opinion of it.
Being ready and willing to detect its
faults, you will, no doubt, find or
invent some; and I shall, at least,
be amused with an uncommon
spectacle. Readers, hitherto, have
only sought for objects to admire
and applaud, and hence all have
conspired to exalt the merits of this
poet. He has faults, no doubt,
but they have been solicitously dis-
guised or overlooked. Listen.” I
now read aloud, pausing at every
sentence to afford him an opportu-
nity of commenting.

Talia flammato secum Dea corde volutans
Nimbor’ in patriam, loca fœta furentilbus
    austris,
Æoliam venit.

“Well,” said Crito, “the god-
dess, full of her new scheme, posts
away to Æolia, which, it seems, is
the native country of rainy clouds
and south winds. I am not wise
enough to say why Æolia was
originally fixed upon as the birth-
place of Auster and Nimbus, and as
their head-quarters, whence they
might make occasional excursions,
and to which, when they were tired
of raining and blowing, they might
return. Æolia, we all know, is a
maritime province of the lesser Asia.
It lies northward of the Mediter-
ranean sea, on which the Trojan
fleet was sailing; and, to no part
of that sea, has it a southern bearing.

“It is allowable, perhaps, to
personify the wind; but how? Shall
we, as usual, place fans upon his
shoulders, and thus represent him
as producing gales by a motion
similar to that of a fan? In this
case the figure need not be neces-
sarily in motion: the motion of his
wings is sufficient. If these be flap-
ping, the god himself may be perch-

―245―

ed upon a rock or hill, and he may
merely turn himself round to make
the gale proceed from opposite
quarters.

“If our personification omit the
fans, and, by puffing up his cheeks
and opening his lips, depict him
as occasioning commotions of the
elements, by the mere breath of his
mouth, we shall produce a more
analogous image. He may still be
described as stationary, but his po-
sition, with regard to us who feel
his breath, must correspond with
the course of the wind. A south
wind cannot justly be described as
placed upon a northern mountain,
nor a northern blast to come from
the south. The dreams of a bar-
barous superstition had given body,
soul, and name to the winds, and
shut them up in caverns on the
coast of Asia Minor. Their king,
according to the legend, was Æolus,
who let them loose, or kept them
fast, according to his pleasure.
When another god had a selfish end
to answer, by raising a storm, he
prevailed on Æolus to unchain his
winds, by the tempting offer of a
splendid robe, or a beautiful female;
but our poet wanted to raise a storm,
and, in doing so, thought it best
to stick to this crazy and chimerical
system. Hence his machinery is
grotesque, puerile, and ridiculous.
Who but must laugh when he sees
that this marvellous tale was design-
ed to enforce the pretentions of a
tyrant to a divine pedigree? Cæsar
was fond of tracing up his house to a
certain emigrant from Troy, who
was the fruit of an amour between
a goddess and a mortal. Octavius
hugged the same phantom, and
Virgil's business was to write a le-
gend, in which the whole marvel-
lous adventure was recounted, and
was copiously intermixed with pro-
digies and miracles.

“So fond were the Romans of
their Trojan ancestry, that, as is
well known, the project was once

soberly adopted by Augustus, of
transferring the seat of the empire
to the scite of the old town of Illium.
This prejudice kept such long, and
such fast hold, that three hundred
years after the scheme was revived
by Constantine, and considerable
progress was made in re-edifying
Troy, which was to be, thenceforth,
the mistress of the nations. But
let us return to our text.

“You, who are a Latinist, may
be able to explain the use of the
word secum in this passage. To
mere English ears, it is a manifest
redundancy. “Volutans flammato
corde,” seem to be sufficient without
secum. She revolves, she rolls over
in her heart, with herself.

“The nimbi and austres are, in
this place, persons. The austres
are made to rage (surentibus). The
Roman word patria, has no corres-
ponding word in English. The
word country does not so strictly
reply a social and political relation
as patria. Loca fœta is an enforce-
ment of the metaphor, and is beau-
tiful.

“Having finished her journey,
what is the next proceeding of the
goddess?

Hîc vasto rex Æolus antro
Luctantes ventos, tempestates que sonoras
Imperio premit, ac vinclis et carcere
    frænat.

“A new personage,” resumed
the critic, “is now introduced to
our acquaintance. It is Æolus.
His office is described. In the first
place, he appears to be a king (rex).
The objects of his government are
the winds. Consistently with these
ideas, it may be said that imperio
premit.

“This general description soon-
becomes particular; but the parti-
cularity belongs to a totally new
scene. From a king, by whom a
mere imperium is exercised, he sud-
denly sinks into a jailer, or rather
a mad-house keeper. A vast cave,
which serves as their dungeon, and

―246―

in which they are chained, succeeds
to those beneficent images connect-
ed with locum fœtum and patria.

“The subjects of this restraint
are here described under two names:
venti, tempestates. I shall not
inquire how far precision of lan-
guage or ideas is here preserved.-
These conditions of the air are
personified. To describe the winds
as struggling and impatient (luc-
tantes), is just and forcible. But
what shall we expect of tempests?
If the measure of his verse induced
the poet to subjoin some epithet to
tempests, we might naturally ima-
gine that some one would be used
denoting a still higher degree of
turbulence and opposition, and not
that the metaphor should be sud-
denly dropped; that tempests from
mortal beings, indignant of oppres-
sion and restraint, should sink into
mere blasts, and be distinguished
by nothing but sound (sonoras).
The austres furentes and venti luc-
tantes, gave us reason to expect
somewhat very different from, and
far less tasteless and trite, than tem-
pestates sonoras.

“It is common to represent
moral restraint metaphorically, as
bridling or curbing the passions (fræ-
natio), in allusion to the mode of re-
straining an horse; but our metaphor
should be, at least, consistent with it-
self. We surely cannot say that we
bridle men with chains (frænat vin-
clis), much less can we talk of bri-
dling or curbing them with a prison
(fræ nat carcere). But go on.

Celsà sedet Æolus arce
Sceptra tenens: Mollit q' animos et tem-
    perat iras.

“King Æolus is here displayed
to our view, sitting on a high peak
(arx celsa), holding the ensign of
royalty, a sceptre. A sceptred
figure, sitting alone upon an high
rock, constitutes a grotesque pic-
ture. Such a throne seems unsuit-
able for majesty. We should not
expect that a king, without visible

attendants or ministers, should sir
in state upon an hill, with a sceptre
in his hand.

“The monarch thus tricked out
with the emblems of royalty, was
just depicted as a jailer, and as
superintending a prison where cer-
tain maniacs were shut up in dun-
geons, and bound down with chains.
Is not this incongruous? But, not
to dwell upon this, the poet, not
satisfied with the description already
given of his functions, now adds
that “Mollit animos et temperat
iras.'

“In the first place, these terms
would aptly enough describe the
influence exerted by a sage, who
employs only arguments and in-
treaties, but are wholly unsuited to
the office either of a king, who is
shewn to us sitting in idle state; or
for a jailer, who governs the re-
fractory by means of bolts and
chains.

“We owe much of poetry not
to the spontaneous impulse of
genius, but to the necessity of pro-
longing sentences and filling up
vacuities. So many syllables are
required to complete a line of six
feet. These syllables must be short
or long, and must succeed each
other in certain order. Instead,
therefore, of merely seeking terms
which convey our thoughts, we are
hunting for those which have two
or three syllables, and whose syl-
lables dispose themselves into dac-
tyls and spondees.

“If, after having fully conveyed
our thoughts, the line is incomplete,
what is to be done? Shall we begin
a new sentence, or shall we con-
trive to piece out the former one?
The first expedient may be some-
times practised, but a frequent re-
currence would break up our style
into discords and fragments. The
last mode, whatever puzzlings and
delays it cost us, we shall be obliged,
generally, to adopt. This seems
to be often a dilemma in which our

―247―

poet was entangled. On number-
less occasions, methinks I see him,
after the fit of inspiration has past,
and been insufficient to supply the
due number of syllables, painfully
searching for a new epithet, or a new
form of expression, by which the
last thought may be repeated with-
out sameness and monotony, and
drawing out the wire, already slen-
der enough, into greater tenuity.
We had just been told, concerning
the empress Juno, that

Necdum etiam causae irarum—savique
dolores
Exciderant animo.

“In this line, our bard, not con-
tent with fully expressing his mean-
ing, must fill up his verse with
vague repetition, or ambiguous re-
dundancy. Juno's imagination is
fraught with “causæ irarum,” and
they were all that belonged to her,
but the line demanded that she
should likewise have “sævidolores.”
The “luctantes ventos,” were suit-
able enough, but the line was in-
complete, and the “tempestates so-
noras” were added. The office of
king Æolus, had been previously
described, both generally and cir-
cumstantially. We have now his
throne, his posture, and his ensigns
of command, but these do not fill
up the verse. Instead of leaving it
unfilled, as is done in many other
places in this poem, the poet, or
some of his wise commentators, has
recurred to the old ideas of his office,
and repeated them once more, un-
seasonably and out of place, and in
terms remarkably vague. The
whole clause is impertinent; but
the clause, itself, consists of two
parts, of which one is a sort of
echo to the other. What should
we think of the precision of an
English poet, who having said of
some body that he mollifies our pas-

sions, immediately adds, and tempers
our rage?

“If you look a little forward,
you will find another example of
the same looseness and repetition.
Speaking of an orator, addressing a
mob, he says that

Ille regit dictis animos—

“Very well; and what else?” “Why—

Et pectora Mulcet.

“In short, I question whether
any passage in this poet, if scruti-
nized with equal care, would be
found less defective than this. Per-
haps, indeed, you have been un-
lucky in falling upon this passage,
where so many defects in composi-
tion, imagery, and sentiment are
evident, and where there is nothing
unexceptionable but the metre.
Whether the music of these lines
flow from the peculiar art of the
poet, or merely from the necessary
structure of the Roman tongue and
the hexametrical variety of dactyls
and spondees, I cannot, for my
part, decide. Certain it is, that
the music is exquisite. In that re-
spect I might prefer the legend of
Æneas and Dido to that of Brito-
mart or Paladour; but, in other
requisites of poetry, in luxuriance of
invention, in lustre of description,
in tenderness and eloquence of sen-
timent, I shall still assign the palm
to the pastoral, elegiac, and heroic
of my own “Colin Clout.”

X.