Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 2.djvu/64

 in the latter end of Winter, as is already prov'd. This Opinion is fortify'd by the Arrival of Æneas at the Mouth of Tyber; which marks the Season of the Spring; that Season being perfectly describ'd by the Singing of the Birds, saluting the dawn; and by the Beauty of the Place: which the Poet seems to have painted expresly in the Seventh Æneid.

The remainder of the Action requir'd but three Months more; for when Æneas went for Succour to the Tuscans, he found their Army in a readiness to march; and wanting only a Commander: So that according to this Calculation, the Æneis takes not up above a Year com­pleat, and may be comprehended in less compass.

This, amongst other Circumstances, treated more at large by Se­grais, agrees with the rising of Orion, which caus'd the Tempest, de­scrib'd in the beginning of the first Book. By some passages in the Pastorals, but more particularly in the Georgicks, our Poet is found to be an exact Astronomer, according to the Knowledge of that Age. Now Ilioneus (whom Virgil twice employs in Embassies, as the best Speaker of the Trojans) attributes that Tempest to Orion in his Speech to Dido,

He must mean either the Heliacal or Achronical rising of that Sign. The Heliacal rising of a Constellation, is when it comes from under the Rays of the Sun, and