Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/96

 next the production of the first Living Creatures, and that too in a small number, (still in the same method.)

And here the foresaid Author would probably remark, that Virgil keeps more exactly the Mosaick System, than an Ingenious Writer, who will by no means allow Mountains to be coæval'' with the World. Thus much will make it probable at least, that Virgil had Moses in his thoughts rather than Epicurus, when he compos'd this Poem. But it is further remarkable, that this Passage was taken from a Song attributed to Apollo, who himself too unluckily had been a Shepherd, and he took it from another yet more ancient, compos'd by the first Inventer of Musick, and at that time a Shepherd too; and this is one of the noblest Fragments of Greek Antiquity; and because I cannot suppose the Ingenious Mr''. F. one of their number, who pretend to censure the Greeks, without being able to distinguish Greek from Ephesian Characters, I shall here set down the Lines from which Virgil took this passage, tho' none of the Commentators have observ'd it. ,, , &c.