mild apples, soft chestnuts, and plenty of new cheese.

Flet noctem.

In the first Æneid,

In faciem illius noctem non amplius unam Falle dolo.

In like manner we find the accusative plural in the third Æneid,

Erramus pelago totidem sine sidere noctes. And in the sixth,

Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis. And,

Vestibulum insomnis servat noctesque diesque.

And in the ninth,

Tibi quam noctes festina diesque
Urgebam.

Poteris.] Pierius found poteras in the Roman and Medicean manuscripts. Burman contends for this reading, which is also approved by Heinsius, and several other editors. La Cerda, Ruæus, and many others, read poteris, which is allowed also by Arusianus.

81. Mitia poma.] Matura, says Servius, quæ non remordent cum mordentur. But the poet may mean mild, in opposition to those sorts which are very harsh, and scarce fit to be eaten.

ples may be used for such as are Or perhaps mild apmade mild by culture, to distinguish them from wildings or crabs.

82. Castanea molles.] Servius interprets molles, maturæ again; but I do not know that chestnuts are soft when they are ripe. Some will have molles to mean new and fresh; others think the poet means a particular sort of chestnuts, which is distinguished by this epithet from the Castanea hirsuta. They are said, by Palladius, to lose the roughness of their husk, by being ingrafted on an almond;

Castaneamque trucem depulsis cogit echinis

Mirari fructus lævia poma sui.

Perhaps we are to understand by Castanea molles roasted chestnuts'; for the ancients were acquainted with this way of preparing them, as we find in Pliny, Torrere has in cibis gratius.

Pressi copia lactis.] Servius understands this to mean cheese; Emulcti et in caseum coacti. Others think it means only curdled milk. I believe it signifies curd, from which the milk has been squeezed out, in order to make cheese. We find in the third Georgick, that the shepherds used to carry the curd, towns; or else salt it, and so lay it as soon as it was pressed, into the by for cheese against winter;

Quod surgente die mulsere, horisque
diurnis,

Nocte premunt; quod jam tenebris
et sole cadente,

And already the chimnies of

and greater shadows fall from the mountains.

ing of the cottage chimnies shews, that the labourers have left off their work, and are preparing their suppers. The lengthening of the shadows that fall from the neighbouring hills is entirely rural, and describes an artless manner of measuring time, suitable to the innocence of pastoral poetry.

Alexim,

1. Formosum pastor, &c.] In this Eclogue the poet describes the passion of a shepherd for a beautiful boy, with whom he is greatly in love. The inclinations to this unnatural vice were long before Virgil's time spread over great part of the world, and may be looked upon as one of the greatest abominations of the heathen, there being several instances of the wrath of God being peculiarly inflicted on such as were addicted to it. However, it would be as unjust to censure Virgil particularly for having mentioned this crime without a mark of detestation, as to condemn him for his idolatry, than which nothing is more abominable in the sight of God. It would be very easy to excuse our poet, by shewing the frequent mention of this vice by many of the most esteemed Greek and Roman writers, whose very deities were supposed to be guilty of it; but I do not choose to stain

burned for the beautiful Alexis,

these papers with the repetition of such horrid impurities, and could rather wish it was possible to bury them in oblivion. Some indeed have ventured to affirm, that this whole Eclogue is nothing but a warm description of a pure friendship; but I fear an impartial reader will be soon convinced, that many of the expressions are too warm to admit of any such interpretation. This however may be said in Virgil's commendation, that he keeps up to his character of modesty, by not giving way to any lascivious or indecent words, which few of his contemporaries could know how to avoid even in treating of less criminal subjects. The first five lines are a narration of Corydon's passion; in which the poet plainly imitates the beginning of the 'Egaons of Theocritus;

̓Ανήρ τις πολύφιλτρος ἀπηνίος ἤρατ ̓ ἐφάβω
Τὰν μορφὰν ἀγαθῷ, τὸν δὲ τρόπον οὐκ ἔθ' ὁμοίω,
Μίσει τὸν φιλέοντα, καὶ οὐδὲ ἓν ἄμερον εἶκε.

had no room for hope.

An amorous shepherd lov'd a charming boy,

As fair as thought could frame, or wish
enjoy;

Unlike his soul, ill-natur'd and unkind,
An angel's body, with a fury's mind.
CREECH.

Corydon.] The commentators are unanimous almost in supposing that Virgil means himself under the feigned name of Corydon. They seem persuaded that he was always thinking of himself, and continually describing his own business and his own follies in these Bucolicks. In short, they make a mere Proteus of him, varying his shape in almost every Eclogue. In the first he was Tityrus, old, poor, and a servant; but here, under the name of Corydon, he is young, handsome, and rich. There he cultivated only a few barren acres, half covered with stones and rushes, on the banks of Mincius: here he is possessed of fine pastures, and has a thousand lambs feeding on the mountains of Sicily. These are such inconsistencies, that I wonder any one can imagine that Virgil is both Tityrus and Corydon. For my own part I believe he is neither; at least, not Corydon, there being some room to imagine that he might mean himself under the name of Tityrus, a shepherd near Mantua, and an adorer of Augustus. It seems most probable, that the person of Corydon is as fictitious as the name.

Ardebat.] This verb is used also by Horace in an active sense;

Non sola comptos arsit adulteri
Crines, et aurum vestibus illitum
Mirata, regalesque cultus,

Et comites, Helene Lacæna. It is allowed by the critics to be the strongest word that can be used, to express the most extreme passion.

Therefore it does not seem to suit with the purity of a disinterested friendship.

Alexim.] The commentators are not so well agreed about the person of Alexis, as they are about that of Corydon. Servius seems to think it was Augustus, "Cæsar Alexis in

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thing can be more absurd, than to persona inducitur." Surely noimagine that Virgil, who in the first Eclogue had erected altars to Augustus, should now degrade him to and afterwards, O formose puer. a shepherd's boy, delicias domini, Would the poet have dared to call Augustus a boy, the very term of reproach used by his enemies, which Servius himself tells us was forbidden by a decree of the senate, as we have seen already in the note on ver. 43. of the first Eclogue? Not much less ridiculous is the imagination of Joannes Lodovicus Vives, that Alexis is Gallus, whom at the same time he allows to have been appointed by Augustus, to command over armies and provinces. Virgil would not have treated so great a person with such familiarity. In the tenth Eclogue indeed, where he celebrates an amour of Gallus, he represents him under the character of a shepherd; but not without making an apology for that liberty.

Nec te poeniteat pecoris divine poeta ;
Et formosus oves ad flumina pavit Ado-
nis.

Servius mentions several other opinions concerning the real person of Alexis. He mentions one Alexander, a servant of Pollio. It is pretended, that Virgil, being invited to dine with his master, took notice of his extraordinary beauty, and fell in love with him; upon which Pollio made a present of him to the