This interpretation is strengthened by Virgil's being an Epicurean; and making the same conclusion in his second Georgic: "Felix, qui potuit cognoscere causas,

Atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum

Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!"

"Happy is he who can know the causes of things, and tread under foot all fear, inexorable fate, and the noise of greedy Acheron."

But Virgil wrote, not for the amusement of women and children over a winter's fire, in the taste of the Milesian fables; but for the use of men and citizens; to instruct them in the duties of humanity and society. The purpose, therefore, of such a writer when he treats of a future state, must be to make the doctrine interesting to his reader, and useful in civil life: Virgil hath done the first, by bringing his Hero to it through the most perilous achievement; and the second, by appropriating the rewards and punishments of that state to virtue and to vice only..

The truth is, the difficulty can never be gotten over, but by sup posing the desent to signify an initiation into the mysteries. This will unriddle the enigma, and restore the poet to himself. And if this was Virgil's meaning, it is to be presumed, he would give some private mark to ascertain it: for which no place was so proper as the conclusion. He has, therefore, with a beauty of invention peculiar to himfelf, made this fine improvement on Homer's story of the two gates; and imagining that of horn for true visions, and that of ivory for false, insinuates by the first the reality of another state; and by the second, the shadowy representations of it in the shows of the mysteries: so that, not the things objected to Eneas, but the scenes of them only were false; as they lay not in hell but in the temple of Ceres.

But though the visions which issued from the ivory gate were unsubstantial, as being only representative; yet I make no question, but the ivory gate itself was real. It appears, indeed, to be no other than that sumptuous door of the temple, through which the initiated came out, when the celebration was over. This temple was of an immense big

ness.*

Ancient authors inform us that the festivals of Ceres sometimes brought to Eleusis thirty thousand of the initiated, without including those who came only from motives of curiosity. These were not present at all the ceremonies. To the more secret, no doubt, were only admitted the small number of novices who every year received the last seal of initiation, and some of those who had received it long before.

Behind the temple, on the western side, is still to be seen a terrace, cut in the rock itself, and raised eight or nine feet above the floor of the temple. Its length is

And now, having occasionally, and by parts only, said so much of these things, it will not be amiss, in conlusion to give one general and concise idea of the whole. I suppose the substance of the celebration to be a kind of drama of the history of Ceres, which afforded opportunity to represent the three particulars, about which the mysteries were principally concerned. The rise and establishment of civil society. The doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments. The error of polytheism, and the principle of the unity.

But here let it be observed, that the secrets of the mysteries were unfolded both by words and actions: of which Aristides, quoted above, gives the reason; "That so the sounds and sights might mutually assist each other in making an impression on the minds of the initiated." The error of polytheism therefore was as well exposed by the dark wanderings in the subterraneous passages through which the initiated began his course, as by the information given him by the hierophant and the truth of the unity as strongly illustrated by ths autopton agalma the self seen image, the diffusive shining light, as by the hymn of Orpheus, or the speech of Anchises.

:

On the whole, if I be not greatly decieved, the view in which I place this famous episode, not only clears up a number of difficulties inexplicable on any other scheme; but likewise ennobles, and gives a graceful finishing to the whole poem; for now the episode is seen to be an assential part of the main subject, which is the erection of a civil policy and a religion. For custom had made initiation into the mysteries a necessary preparative to that arduous undertaking.

To conclude, the principles here assumed, in explaining this famous poetical fiction, are, I presume, such as give solidity, as well as light, to what is deduced from them; and are, perhaps, the only principles from which any thing reasonable can be c'educed in a piece of criticism of this nature. For from what I have shown was taught and represented in the mysteries, I infer that Eneas's descent into hell signifies an initiation; because of the exact conformity, in all circumstances, between what Virgil relates of his hero's adventure, and what antiquity delivers

about 270 feet, and its breadth in some places 44. At the northern end is to be seen the remains of a chapel, to go up into which there were several steps.

I conjecture that on this terrace was exhibited the scenery; that it was divided lengthwise into three great galleries, the two first of which represented the region of trial, and that of the infernal shades; and the third, covered with earth, presented groves and meadows to the view of the initiated, who from thence went up into the chapel, where their eyes were dazzled by the splendor of the statue of the goddess (Travels of Anacharsis.)-Edit.

concerning the shows and doctrines of those mysteries, into which heroes were wont to he initiated.

The view taken by bishop Warburton of the purport of the sixth book of the Eneid, was new, and caluculated to excite the deep attention of the learned world. Accordingly various opinions were entertained for and against the correctness of the position assumed by him. Among the critics who entered the lists in opposition to the author, was the celebrated historian Gibbon. And this, he says, was his first publication in English. His remarks on the subject are contained in the third volume of his miscellaneous work; which he introduces as follows:

"The allegorical interpretation which the bishop of Gloucester has given of the sixth book of the Eneid, seems to have been very favorably received by the public. Many writers, both at home and abroad, have mentioned it with approbation, or at least with esteem; and I have more than once heard it alleged, in the conversation of scholars, as an ingenious improvement on the plain and obvious sense of Virgil. As such, it is not undeserving the notice of a candid critic; nor can the inquiry be void of entertainment, whilst Virgil is our constant theme.

"I shall readily allow, what I believe may in general be true, that the mysteries exhibited a theatrical representation of all that was believed or imagined of the lower world; that the aspirant was conducted through the mimic scenes of Erebus, Tartarus, and Elysium; and that a warm enthusiast, in describing these awful spectacles, might express himself as if he had actually visited the infernal regions. It is not surprising that the copy was like the original; but it still remains undetermined, whether Virgil intended to describe the original or the copy."

If the copy was a true representation of the original, of what consequence is it which the poet took as his sampler? But, as it was more easy to procure a correct iscription of the spectacles exhibited in the temple of the Eleusinian Ceres, than of what takes place in the regions below, it is most probable Virgil chose the former. Besides, it may be remarked, that the description of the infernal regions was doubtless first matured in the mysteries. No author, it is presumed, had before their establishment, ever given any thing like a detailed account of such place. They therefore, properly speaking, are the original, and the parallel is to be found in Virgils description of Eneas's descent. Mr. Voltaire showed great fickleness in his opinion on this subject; sometimes giving it in favor of Warburton's hypothesis, and at others, the contrary. Speaking of the Eleusinian mysteries, (tomc. xvi, p. 162) he says,

"The mysterious ceremonies of Ceres were an imitation of those of Isis. Those who nad committed crimes confessed and expiated them: they fasted, they purified themselves, and gave alms. All the ceremonies were held secret, under the religious sanction of an oath, to render them more venerable. The mysteries were celebrated in the night to inspire a holy horror. They represented a kind of tragedy in which the spectacle exposed to view the happiness of the just and the torments of the wicked. The greatest men of antiquity, the Platos, the Ciceros have eulogized these mysteries, which had not then degenerated from their primative purity.

"Very learned men have supposed that the sixth book of the Eneid was a descrip tion of what passed in these secret and celebrated shows." Again, he says, "The sixth book of the Eneid is only a description of the mysteries of Isis and the Eleusinian Ceres."

He afterwards recants this opinion, and says, "I think I see a description of the Eleusinian Ceres, in Claudian's poem on the Rape of Proserpine much clearer than I

can see any in the sixth book of the Eneid. Virgil lived under a prince who joined to all his other bad qualities that of wishing to pass for a religious character; who was probably initiated in these mysteries himself, the better thereby to impose upon the people: and who would not have tolerated what would have been pretended to be such decided profanation."

Why, Augustus was the hero of the poem; it was for his honor and glory that the poet labored. He was, says our author, shadowed in the person of Eneas; and would not, therefore, probably have been very scrupulous about a vague exposition of the mysteries, while it tended to his own glorification.

"Claudian, (says Warburton,) professes openly to treat of the Eleusinian mysteries, at a time when they were in little veneration." It is not strange, therefore, that Mr. Voltaire should see a description of the Eleusinian Ceres, in Claudian's poem, much clearer than in the sixth book of the Eneid; the author of which evidently not intending that his object should be generally known.

Voltaire seems frequently to have written off hand, without subjecting himself to the trouble of rigid scrutiny; and, indeed, he wrote so much, and upon such a variety of topics, that it would appear impossible that he should bestow strict attention to them all. In the present case, his first impresssions appear to have been founded on the opinions of the learned men he alludes to, and he probably adopted a contrary belief in like manner, without an attentive examination of the subject.

Bishop Warburton was probably occupied many years in the composition of his learned work; he had thoroughly studied the subject, and it is confidently believed that this application of the sixth book of the Eneid to the mysteries will stand the test of the most severe criticism.

The Abbé Barthelemi, in an article on the mysteries, in his "Travels of Anacharsis," quotes the Eneid in a description of them, as if no question then existed in regard to Virgil's views.

23

THE

CHAPTER IV.

METAMORPHOSIS OF APULEIUS AND THE AMOUR OF CUPID AND PSYCHE.

Thus far concerning the use of the mysteries to society. How essential they were esteemed to religion, we may understand by the Metamorphosis of Apuleius; a book, indeed, which from its very first appearance hath passed for a trivial fable. Capitolinus, in the life of Clodius Albinus, where he speaks of that kind of tales which disconcert the gravity of philosophers, tells us that Severus could not bear with patience the honors the Senate had conferred on Albinus; especially their distinguishing him with the title of learned, who was grown old in the study of old wives-fables, such as the Milesian-Punic tales of his countryman and favorite, Apuleius.

And

The writer of the Metamorphosis, however, was one of the gravest and most virtuous, as well as most learned philosophers of his age. Albinus appears to have gone further into the true character of this work, than his rival Severus. And if we may believe Marcus Aurelius, who calls Albinus, "A man of experience, of demure life, and grave morals," he was not a man to be taken with such trifling amusements as Milesian fables. His fondness therefore for the Metamorphosis of Apuleius shows that he considered it in another light. who so likely to be let into the author's true design, as Albinus, who lived very near his time, and was of Adrumetum in the neighborhood of Carthage, where Apuleius sojourned and studied, and was distinguished with public honors? The work is indeed of a different character from what some ancients have represented it; and even from what modern critics have pretended to discover of it. Those ancients, who stuck in the outside, considered it, without refinement, as an idle fable; the moderns, who could not reconcile a work of that nature to the gravity of the author's character, have supposed it a thing of more importance, and no less than a general satire on the vices of those times..

But this is far short of the matter. The author's main purpose was not to satirize the specific vices of his age, though to enliven his fable, and for the better carrying on his story, he hath employed many circumstances of this kind, but to recommend Pagan religion, as the only cure for all vices whatsoever.

To give what we have to say its proper force, we must consider