THAT [bard] am I, who erst attuned his lay Upon the slender reed, and from the woods Withdrawing, have compelled the neighb ring fields

The tiller to obey, though greedy [he] :

A welcome task to swains: but now Mars' dread

ARMS and the man I sing, who erst from

coasts

Of Troy to Italy and Lavinian shores,
By destiny a rover, came. Much he
Was tossed alike on lands and sea, through
might

Those writers seem to have been hasty in their criticisms upon these first four lines, who pronounce them unworthy of the author of the Eneid. Able scholars are found to think them thoroughly Virgilian; and Forbiger thinks he sees plain evidence of genuineness in the word at. Had the writers in question, instead of saying that the passage was not Virgil's, said that it was a weak introduction to an epic poem, they would have been quite right; and doubtless no one would have been happier to agree with them than Virgil himself. It seems highly probable that he sent the lines in dispute, along with the work itself, to some friend, who showed them to others, and in this way they obtained currency as the unquestioned production of his pen. Thus from their genuineness, coupled with their great ingenuity, they crept into the text, from which they were most likely ejected by Tucca and Varius, though some manuscripts retained them still. One thing is pretty certain,—that Virgil, whose discretion and taste must be admitted, even by those who think meanly of his creative powers, would never, with his great original before him, have begun the Eneid with an Ille ego. At all events, Persius did not believe in the puerility, if he ever heard of it.

This opening reminds one of the introduction to the Faerie Queene:

"Lo! I, the man whose Muse whylome did maske,
As time her taught, in lowly shepheards weeds,
Am now enforst, a farre unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine oaten reeds,
And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds:" &c.
See also Shepheards Calender, October, 55.
4. Cowley compares the sufferings of Charles the
Second to those of Æneas, philosophising, more

suo:

"But, in the cold of want, and storms of adverse chance,

They harden his young virtue by degrees: The beauteous drop first into ice does freeze, And into solid crystal next advance. His murder'd friends and kindred he does see, And from his flaming country flee:

Much is he tost at sea, and much at land;
Does long the force of angry gods withstand:
He does long troubles and long wars sustain,
Ere he his fatal birthright gain.

With no less time and labour can
Destiny build up such a man,
Who's with sufficient virtue filled
His ruin'd country to rebuild."

Ode on Restoration.

"I am pursued; all the ports are stopt too;
Not any hope to escape; behind, before me,
On either side I am beset ;-cursed fortune;
My enemy on the sea, and on the land too,
Redeemed from one affliction to another."
Beaumont and Fletcher, The Custom of the
Country, ii. 4.

15. So Milton, Par. Lost, b. vi:

"In heavenly Spirits could such perverseness dwell ?"

Above them laid, and giv'n a monarch, who By pact decreed should know, at his command,

Alike to check and give the slackened reins :

To whom then Juno prayerful used these words:

"O Eolus, (for 'tis to thee the sire Of gods, and king of men, alike hath giv'n To soothe the waves, and heave them by the wind,)

A nation, foe to me, the Tyrrhene main
Is sailing, Ilium into Italy
Conveying, and their conquered household-
gods:

100

Strike fury in thy winds, and whelm their ships,

Deep sunken, or, dissundered, hunt them down,

And strew abroad their corses on the deep. With me are twice sev'n Nymphs of passing form;

Of whom [the maid], who fairest is in shape,
Deiope, in steadfast marriage-bond
Will I unite, and consecrate thine own;
That all her years, in company with thee,
For such deservings she may while away,
And make thee father with a lovely race."
These olus [returned her] in reply:
"Be thine, O queen, the task to search
whate'er

112

May be thy wish; to me, to undertake Thy mandates is a law. 'Tis thou for me, (Whatever this of realm [partakes],) 'tis

thou

Dost sceptre win and Jove; 'tis thou dost give

That I recline at banquets of the gods, And makest me the lord of rains and storms."

When these were said, with spear-head, towards it veered,

105. See note on n. iv. v. 126.

112. Ask noble things of me, and you shall find I'll be a noble giver."

Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, v. 1. "As when Dan Eolus, in great displeasure 119. For losse of his deare Love by Neptune hent, Sends forth the winds out of his hidden threasure Upon the sea to wreake his full intent; They, breaking forth with rude unruliment From all foure partes of heaven, doe rage full sore, And tosse the deepes, and teare the firmament, And all the world confound with wide uprore; As if instead thereof they Chaos would restore." Spenser, F. Q., iv. 9, 23.

Where outlet is vouchsafed them, dash amain,

And in tornado blow throughout the lands.
They swooped upon the sea, and all at once
Both East, and South, and South-west,
rife in storms,

Uproot it wholly from its deepest seats,
And volley mountain surges to the shores.
Ensues both cry of men and creak of ropes.
The clouds upon a sudden tear away
Both heav'n and day-light from the Trojans'
130

eyes;

Upon the deep broods collied night; the poles

Thundered, and æther gleams with serried fires;

And all threat instant death upon the crews. Forthwith Æneas' limbs are with a chill Unnerved; he groans, and stretching both his hands

Forth to the stars, such accents with his voice

He utters: "O both thrice and four times blest,

To whom, before the presence of your sires, 'Neath Troja's stately walls, it fell by lot To meet your doom! O bravest of the race Of Danai, O Tydeus' son, that I On Ilian plains should not have fall'n, and poured

141

This spirit forth 'neath thy right hand, where fierce

Beneath the weapon of Æacides

130.

"Nor slept the winds," &c.

"How like the day, that flattered us With cheerful light, are my desires fled hence, And left me here a prodigy of darkness, A walking herse, hung round about with night, Whose wings must one day cover all !"

Shirley, The Doubtful Heir, iv. 2.

137. Shakespeare makes Pericles, under similar circumstances, address a prayer to the Deity; Pericles, iii. 1:

"Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these surges, Which wash both heaven and hell; and Thou that hast

Upon the winds command, bind them in brass, Having call'd them from the deep! O still thy deaf'ning,

Thy dreadful thunders; gently quench thy nimble, Sulphureous flashes."

142.

"Could not the fretting sea Have rowled me up in wrinkles of his browe? Is death growen coy? or grim confusion nice? That it will not accompany a wretch ?"

Marston, Antonio and Mellida, P. 1, i. 1.

Bounding between the two moist elements,
Like Perseus' horse: where's then the saucy boat,

Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now
Co-rivall'd greatness?-Either to harbour fled,
Or made a toast for Neptune."

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, i. 3. Thomson has a fine passage, describing a scene not very dissimilar; Winter, 153: "Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst, And hurls the whole precipitated air Down in a torrent. On the passive main Descends th' ethereal force, and with strong gust Turns from its bottom the discolour'd deep. Through the black night that sits immense around, Lash'd into foam, the fierce conflicting brine Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn. Meantime the mountain-billows, to the clouds In dreadful tumult swell'd, surge above surge, Burst into Chaos with tremendous roar."

155: "The proud waves took pleasure To toss my little boat up like a bubble: Then like a meteor in the air he hung; Then catched, and hugged him in the depth of darkness."

J. Fletcher, The Double Marriage, iii. 3.

Is rolled along upon his head. But her Three times the billow, in the selfsame spot, 171

Whirls, chasing her around, and in the flood

The rav'ning eddy gorges her. Appear Men scattered, swimming in the mighty gulf,

The weaponry of heroes, planks alike,
And Troja's royal treasure thro' the waves.
Now the stout galley of Ilioneus,
Now that of brave Achates, [that] alike,
Wherein was Abas wafted, and wherein
The aged Aletes, mastered has the storm.
In the loose joinings of their ribs they all
Admit the hostile flood, and yawn with
leaks.
182
Meanwhile felt Neptune that with mighty

coil

Turmoiled was ocean, and a storm launched forth,

And from their lowest beds were tided back
The restful waters. Violently roused,
And, looking from the deep abroad, he
raised

His peaceful head above the topmost wave.
Dispersed throughout the ocean he beholds
Æneas' fleet, the Trojans overwhelmed 190
By billows, and the downfall of the sky :
Nor did the wiles of Juno and her spleen
Escape her brother. To his presence he
Calls Eurus and the Zephyr ; such thereon
He speaks : "Hath such proud confidence
of birth

Possessed you? What now! Heav'n and earth, ye Winds,

Without my sanction, dare ye to embroil, And such colossal piles to raise? Whom I

Henceforth to me with no like punishment But meeter 'tis to quell the troubled waves.

174. We might descry a horred spectacle;
The issue of black fury strowed the sea
With tattered carcases of splitting ships,
Halfe sinking, burning, floating, topsie turvie."
Marston, Antonio and Mellida, P. 1, i. 1.

186. Stagna seems to refer to the still waters at the bottom of the deep sea, which are not affected by the wind on the surface. The storm was so furious, that even these were involved in commotion and carried aloft.

188. So Milton, P. L., b. xii. :

"And looking down to see the hubbub strange, And hear the din."

"Down, ye angry waters all!

Ye loud-whistling whirlwinds, fall!
Down, ye proud waves! ye storms, cease!
I command ye, be at peace!

Fright not with your churlish notes,

Nor bruise the keel of bark that floats."

J. Fletcher, The Pilgrim, iii. 7.

Shall ye for your malpractices atone. 201 Speed flight, and to that king of yours say these:

'That not to him the lordship of the main, And grisly trident are by lot assigned, But e'en to me. He holds the monster rocks,

Thy homes, O Eurus: in that court [of his] Let vaunt him Æolus, and hold his sway Within the bolted prison of the winds.'

So spake he; and more speedily than said

The swollen seas he stills, and puts to flight The mustered clouds, and brings again the

Cymothoe and Triton [both] at once, Against them straining, from the pointed rock

Push off the galleys; with his trident he Heaves them himself, and opes the vasty Syrts,

And calms the ocean; and on nimble wheels

He skims along the surface of the waves. And as what time among a mighty mob An insurrection oft hath started up,

They have descried, they hush [to peace], and stand

Beside him with their ears erect: he sways Their spirits by his words, and soothes their breasts.

Thus wholly did the crash of ocean fall, When once the sire, forth gazing on the

seas,

And wafted on beneath a cloudless sky, Controls his coursers, and upon the wing Resigns the reins to his pursuing car. 231 The comrades of Æneas, wearied out, What shores are nearest to them in their

course

Strive earnestly to fetch, and to the coasts Of Lybia turn themselves. There lies a spot

Within a far retreat: an isle a haven forms
By the projection of its sides, whereon
Is shattered every billow from the deep,
And into curves receding splits its form.
On this side and on that colossal rocks,
And twin [-like] cliffs rise tow'ring to the
heaven;
241
Beneath whose brow the waters far and near

And now are flying brands and stones ;

their rage

221

Supplies them weapons ;-then if by a chance

Some sage, of weight through sanctity and worth,

Milton elegantly makes the Morn equally potent; P. R., b. iv.:

"Thus pass'd the night so foul, till Morning fair

Came forth, with pilgrim steps, in amice grey;
Who with her radiant finger still'd the roar
Of thunder, chased the clouds, and laid the
winds."

214. So Dryden, of the escape of the British fleet: "It seem'd as there the British Neptune stood,

With all his hosts of waters at command, Beneath them to submit th' officious flood, And with his trident shoved them off the sand." Annus Mirabilis, 184.

223. As vir., V. 151, on some occasions means hero, i. e., a great man, what reason is there

man?

"When the fire was raised Of fierce sedition, and the cheek was swollen To sound the fatal trumpet, then the sight Of this your worthy captain did disperse All those unfruitful humours, and even then Convert you from fierce tigers to staid men." Webster, Appius and Virginia, ii. 2. Such a reverend character may call to mind the Village Preacher in Goldsmith's Deserted Village: "Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power

By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour; Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize, More bent to raise the wretched than to rise." "Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray." "As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the