Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 3.djvu/367

Rh, observes nothing on this place; but that it appears by it, the Mourning of Octavia was yet fresh, for the loss of her Son Mar­cellus, whom she had by her first Husband: And who dyed in the Year aburbe conditâ, 731. And collects from thence that Virgil, rea­ding this Aeneid before her, in the same Year, had just finish'd it: That from this time to that of the Poet's Death, was little more than four Years. So that supposing him to have written the whole Aeneis in eleven Years; the first six Books must have taken up seven of those Years: On which Account the six last, must of necessity be less correct.

Now for the false judgment of my Friends, there is but this little to be said for them; the words of Virgil, in the Verse preceding are these,

As if the Poet had meant, if you break through your hard Destiny, so as to be born, you shall be call'd Marcellus: But this cannot be the Sense: for though Marcellus was born, yet he broke not through those hard Decrees, which doom'd him to so immature a death. Much less can Virgil mean, you shall be the same Marcellus by the Transmi­gration of his Soul. For according to the System of our Author, a Thousand Years must be first elaps'd, before the Soul can return into a Humane Body; but the first Marcellus was slain in the second Punick War. And how many hundred Years were yet wanting, to the ac­complishing his penance, may with ease be gather'd, by