Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/94

, and struck with admiration of it, conferr'd then upon Virgil the Glorious Title of

Nor is it Old Donatus only who relates this, we have the same account from another very Credible and Ancient Author; so that here we have the judgment of Cicero, and the People of Rome'', to confront the single Opinion of this adventrous Critick. A Man ought to be well assur'd of his own Abilities, before he attack an Author of establish'd Reputation. If Mr''. F. had perus'd the fragments of the Phænician Antiquity, trac'd the progress of Learning thro' the Ancient Greek Writers, or so much as Consulted his Learned Country-Man Huetius, he would have found, (which falls out unluckily for him) that a Chaldæan Shepherd discover'd to the Ægyptians and Greeks the Creation of the World''. And what Subject more fit for such a Pastoral, than that Great Affair which was first notified to the World by one of that Profession? Nor does it appear, (what he takes for granted) that Virgil describes the Original of the World according to the Hypothesis of Epicurus; he was too well seen in Antiquity to commit such a gross Mistake; there is not the least mention of Chance in that whole passage, nor of the Clinamen Principiorum, so peculiar to Epicurus's ''Hypothesis. Virgil had not only more Piety, but was of