Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/99

 Converted Heathens, as Valerianus, and others: And upon account of this Piece, the most Learn'd of the Latin Fathers calls Virgil a Christian, even before Christianity. Cicero takes notice of it in his Books of Divination, and Virgil probably had put it in Verse a considerable time before the Edition of his Pastorals''. Nor does he appropriate it to Pollio, or his Son, but Complementally dates it from his Consulship. And therefore some one who had not so kind thoughts of Mr. F. as I, would be inclin'd to think him as bad a Catholick as Critick in this place''.

But, in respect to some Books he has wrote since, I pass by a great part of this, and shall only touch briefly some of the Rules of this sort of Poem.

The First is, that an air of Piety upon all occasions should be maintain'd in the whole Poem: This appears in all the Ancient Greek Writers; as Homer, Hesiod, Aratus, ''&c. And Virgil is so exact in the observation of it, not only in this Work, but in his Æneis too, that a Celebrated French Writer taxes him for permitting Æneas to do nothing without the assistance of some God. But by this it appears, at least, that Mr. St. Eur. is no'' Jansenist.

Mr. F''. seems a little defective in this point; he brings in a pair of Shepherdesses disputing very warmly, whether Victoria be a Goddess, or a Woman. Her great condescension and compassion, her affability and goodness, none of''