Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/28

 or what is a great deal more probable; that the Latin Grammarians wanting Materials for the former part of Virgil's Life, after the Legendary Fashion, supply'd it out of Herodotus; and like ill Face-Painters, not being able to hit the true Features, endeavour'd to make amends by a great deal of impertinent Landscape and Drapery.

Without troubling the Reader with needless Quotations, now, or afterwards; the most probable Opinion is, that Virgil was the Son of a Servant, or Assistant to a wandring Astrologer; who practis'd Physic. For Medicus, Magus, as Juvenal observes, usually went together; and this course of Life was follow'd by a great many Greeks and Syrians; of one of which Nations it seems not improbable, that Virgil's Father was. Nor could a Man of that Profession have chosen a fitter place to settle in, than that most Superstitious Tract of Italy; which by her ridiculous Rites and Ceremonies as much enslav'd the Romans, as the Romans did the Hetrurians by their Arms. This Man