cal language, becomes Virgil's; and Virgil's turned into plain prose, becomes Sallust's. The historian describes the winds and waves as rendering the Syrtes now vadosas, now altas; while the poet ascribes the same effect to the agency of Eurus and Neptune, the former of whom illidit (naves viz.) vadis, atque aggere cingit arena, i. e. makes the Syrtes vadosas, and dashes the ships upon them; the latter aperit syrtes, i. e. makes the vadosas, (the shallow and impassable, and therefore, closed) altas, (deep and passable, and therefore, open, apertas) and thus frees and sets afloat the ships. Our author makes a precisely similar use of aperio, (En. x. 13,) Exitium magnum atque Alpes immittet apertas; and thus we come round to that very common phrase, and use of the verb aperio, apertus campus. V. 150. Furor arma ministrat.-Quod cuique repertum, Rimanti telum ira facit, (En. VII. 507). V. 161. Sinus reductos.-As it is impossible for a wave to cut itself (scindere sese) except into parts of itself, sinus must be, (not as understood by some commentators and translators, sinus litoris, but) as rightly understood by Heyne, sinus undæ, viz. the hollows or sinuosities into which the wave cuts itself on the projections of the island. Heyne is, however, as I think, widely astray in his interpretation of reductos, which expresses, not the reflux of the wave, but the depth or concavity of the sinus which is formed in the wave by the island; or, to make my meaning more clear, that part of the wave which is opposite to the island, is held back by the obstacle which the island opposes to its progress, while those parts of it which are on the right and left of the island proceed uninterruptedly onwards towards the mainland. The even parallel line of the wave is thus broken and formed into an arch or sinus, the concavity of which is at the island, and the cornua of which extend on both sides past the island towards the mainland. The word reductos, expresses as clearly as possible the effect of the island to draw or keep back that part of the wave which is opposite to it, and thus forms a sinus. It is used in a similar sense in the following passages. Reductâ valle, En. vI. 703. Reductis alis constiterant, Liv. XXII. 47. Ut qui singulis pinxerunt coloribus, alia tamen eminentiora, alia reductiora fecerunt, sine quo ne membris quidem suas lineas dedissent, Quinctil. Instit. XI. 3, 46: in all which instances reductus is used adjectively, and signifies the backward position of an object or part of an object, in comparison with the prominent or forward position of another object, or different part of the same object. V. 164. Equora tuta silent.-The commentators understand tuta in its passive sense, of being safe or protected, viz. ipsa æquora; "a ventorum vi defensa,"-Forbiger; "als particip. passiv. gesichert"-Thiel. But, 1st, It were foreign to his subject, and little short of puerile in Virgil, thus to assign a reason for the silence of the sea within the cove. 2dly, This is not the meaning of æquora tuta, where it occurs again, En. v. 171. I therefore understand tuta to be here taken, if I may so say, actively; and to mean, as in En. v. 171, (and in Nepos, Themist. c. 2, "Prædones maritimos consectando mare tutum reddidit,") safe for ships. So understood, tuta is not only in the best harmony with Virgil's subject, and especially with lines 168, 169, but with its own verb; the sea was not merely safe for ships, but so safe for ships as to be even silent. V. 176. Rapuitque in fomite flammam.-Rapio is here used, not in its secondary, or derived, and most common sense, to rap, snatch, or seize, but in its original and more abstract sense of hurrying, or performing with rapidity, the act (of whatever kind,) indicated by the context; as in Seneca (Hippol. 962,) Qui sparsa cito sidera mundo Cursusque vagos rapis astrorum. V. 178. Fessi rerum.-Not simply wearied, but fessi, wearied; rerum, of their condition, of the world. V. 180. Eneas scopulum, &c. Up to a hill anon his steps he reared, From whose high top to ken the prospect round, If cottage were in view, sheep-cote or herd; Only in a bottom saw a pleasant grove, Par. Reg. b. II. V. 181. Anthea si quem.-Neither quendam Anthea, nor (with Wagner) "si forte quem eorum qui amissi videbantur ut Anthea aut Capyn videat," but simply aliquem Anthea. The expression is perfectly English; "If by chance he might see any Antheus or any Capys, &c. Compare verse 321, “mearum si quam sororum," i. e. si quam (aliquam) sororem meam. V. 196. Heros dividit, &c.-Heros belongs to dividit, not to dederat, because, first, if it belong to dederat, the long series of verbs, videat, prospicit, constitit, corripuit, sternit, miscet, absistit, fundat, æquet, petit, partitur, dividit, mulcet, being left wholly without a nominative, the attention is directed rather to the acts themselves than to the actor; which cannot be supposed to have been the intention of the poet, the actor being no less a person than the hero of the poem. 2dly, Dederat, inasmuch as it is joined by the conjunction to onerarat, shares its nominative, bonus Acestes, and has no occasion for any other. 3dly, In the accurate language of Virgil, (see En. II. 552,) heros applied to dederat, in addition to its other nominative, would imply that there was something peculiarly heroic in Acestes giving the wine, which yet was not the fact. 4thly, It would have been rather derogatory to the hero of his poem, if Virgil had thus unnecessarily applied the term heros to so very unimportant and secondary a personage as Acestes, at the very moment when he was leaving Eneas without any appellative, or even so much as a bare mention of his name. 5thly, Heros placed just before the last of the long series of verbs descriptive of the acts of Eneas, draws back the attention, and places it on the hero of the poem even more powerfully than if it had been placed at the beginning of the series. 6thly, and principally, because it is Virgil's wont thus to draw back the attention to the subject of his sentence, either by the proper name itself, or a new appellative placed towards the close of the sentence and immediately before the verb. See Comment. on Inscia Dido, verse 718. V. 214. Fusique per herbam.-Fusi, not scattered, but laid Claud. Epith. Pall. et Celerina, vers. 1. See also Claudian, ibid. vers. 35. There is no distributive power in the sentence except what is feebly possessed by the word per. Compare Fundat humi, verse 193. V. 223. Quum Jupiter, &c.-For Spenser's imitation of this passage, and of Mercury's descent from heaven, see his Mother Hubbard's Tale, vers. 1225, and seq. The whole of the interview between Jupiter and Venus has been also copied and greatly amplified by Camoens, Lusiad. II. 33. V. 225. Sic vertice cæli.-Sic, i. e. sic despiciens. Compare (Evang. sec. Johan. IV. 6,) "Jesus ergo fatigatus ex itinere sedebat sic (i. e. sic fatigatus) supra fontem." V. 225*. Vertice cæli.-The highest part, or arx, of heaven; where (viz. because the palace of the earthly king was always seated on the arx of the city, see En. 11. 760; 2 Samuel, v. 9,) the poets, necessarily taking their notions of heavenly, from the corresponding earthly objects, placed the palace of the gods. See Comment. En. I. 250. V. 228. Tristior et lacrymis oculos suffusa nitentes.-Scarcely less beautiful are the words in which Dante causes Virgil's shade to describe the weeping regard of Beatrice: Gli occhi lucenti lagrimando volse. V. 244. Fontem superare Timavi.—“ Restat ut hoc moneamus, fontem Timavi h. 1. pro ipso Timavo dici." Heyne, Exc. 7, ad En. 1. But if fontem Timavi signify ipsum (viz. fluvium) Timavum, unde must be equivalent to ex quo fluvio Timavo; and how it is possible to render ex quo fluvio Timavo it mare proruptum, et pel. pr. ar. son., so that it shall not be downright nonsense, I cannot perceive. Unde-it. "Hinc ille it.” Heyne, ibid. But ille must refer either to fontem Timavi, or Timavi; if to the former, the sentence fontem superare Timavi unde ille (viz. fons Timavi) it, is nonsense, whether Fons Timavi be understood in its simple and literal meaning, or, with Heyne, as equivalent to fluvius Timavus; if to the latter, the structure contradicts the Latin idiom, which requires the pronoun to be supplied from the whole, not from a portion of the preceding subject, and in conformity with which, it is impossible to doubt that Virgil (if he had intended to express that the fluvius Timavus issued from the fountain,) would have written fontem superare unde Timavus it, as Georg. IV. 368, Caput unde altus primum se erumpit Enipeus. Mare proruptum-" ad maris speciem, magnos fluctus vol ventis." Heyne, ibid. But, 1st, mare proruptum were a most extravagant metaphor to apply to a river admitted by Heyne. himself to have been no more than one thousand yards long. 2dly, To repeat (unnecessarily, too) in pelago the same metaphor which he had used in mare proruptum in the very same line, were altogether repugnant to the good taste and the practice of Virgil. 3dly, If this interpretation be correct, pelago premit arva sonanti is little more than a mere tautology of it mare proruptum. All these difficulties, or, to speak more correctly, all these absurdities, may be got rid of, by entirely throwing away the interpretations of the commentators, and translating the sentence according to the plain and natural construction, and the literal meaning of the words. Fontem superare Timavi, unde, (viz. ex quo fonte Timavi) mare proruptum it, (viz. se prorumpit; compare Georg. IV. 368,) et pel. pr. arv. son. Or, in plain prose:-the sea communicates subterraneously with, and bursts out through, the fountain of Timavus, making a roaring noise, and deluging the fields, (pelago) with the salt water. Understanding the passage thus, we not only give to fontem Timavi, and mare proruptum, their plain and literal meaning, and to the verb it the nominative, with which Virgil (as if to prevent all possibility of mistake) has placed it in immediate juxta-position, but obtain an explanation why Antenor is said to have passed not the river, but the fountain Timavus, viz., because it was not the river which was the remarkable object, but the fountain, out of which the sea used (probably in certain states only of the wind and tide) to burst with a roaring noise. I cannot comprehend how so acute a scholar as Heyne should not only have been aware of a subterranean communication between the sea and the fountain of Timavus, (see his Exc. 7, ad En. 1.) but have actually described (ibid.) the bursting out of the sea through the fountain, and yet not have perceived that this very bursting out of the sea through the fountain, was the one essential thing which Virgil wished to place before the reader. I may add, that the observation of the fact of the salt or sea water issuing from the fountain, and flowing down the course of the river, so as apparently to supply a source to the sea itself, affords a much more probable origin of the ancient term μητὴρ θαλάττης, and its modern translation, La madre del mare, applied by the inhabitants to the fons Timavi, than any supposed resemblance to a sea, which its |