Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 3.djvu/351

Rh Menses, as if the Infants smiling on his Mother, was a Reward to her for bearing him ten Months in her Body, four Weeks longer than the usual time. Secondly, Catullus is cited by Joseph Scaliger, as favouring this Opinion, in his Epithalamium of Manlius Torquatus.

What if I shou'd steer betwixt the two Extreams, and conclude, that the Infant, who was to be happy, must not only smile on his Parents, but also they on him? For Scaliger notes that the Infants who smil'd not at their Birth, were observ'd to be [...], or sullen (as I have Translated it) during all their Life: And Servius, and almost all the Modern Commentators affirm, that no Child was thought Fortunate on whom his Parents smil'd not, at his Birth. I observe farther, that the Ancients thought the Infant who came into the World at the end of the Tenth Month, was Born to some extraordinary Fortune, good or Bad. Such was the Birth of the late Prince of Condé, of whom his Mother was not brought to Bed, 'till almost Eleven Months were ex­pir'd after his Fathers Death: Yet the College of Physicians at Paris, concluded he was Lawfully begotten. My Ingenious Friend, Anthony Henley Esq desir'd me to make a Note on this Passage of Virgil: Ad­ding what I had not Read; that the Jews have been so Superstitious, as to observe not only the first Look