afford him an asylum by a sentiment still more sublime than the recollection of any particular hospitality, highly respected as it was among the ancients; but by the general interest which we take in the miserable. In order to render the effect of this more dignified, and more affecting, she applies to herself the need of it, and reverberates from her own heart, on the Trojan Prince, only the same degree of sympathy which she demands for herself. These are her words:

Me quoque per multos similis fortuna labores
Jactatam, bâc demum voluit consistere terrâ.
Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco.*

ENEID, B. i. L. 632-634.

"A fortune similar to thine, after having pursued "me too through distresses innumerable, permitted 66 me at length to form a settlement on these shores. "Nurtured myself in the school of adversity, I am "instructed to succour the miserable."

Virgil uniformly prefers natural to political reasons, and the interest of Mankind to national interests. Hence it comes to pass that his Poem, though composed to diffuse the particular glory of the Roman People, interests the men of all ages, and of all Nations.

To return to King Evander: He was employed in offering a sacrifice to Hercules, at the head of his Arcadian Colony, at the time Eneas landed.

After

*My wanderings and my fate resembling yours,
At length I settled on these Lybian shores;
And, touch'd with miseries myself have known,
I view with pity woes so like my own.

PITT.

After having engaged the Trojan Chief and his attendants to partake of the sacred banquet which his arrival had interrupted, he instructs his guest in the origin of this sacrifice, by relating to him the history of the robber Cacus, whom Hercules put to death in a cavern adjoining to the Aventine Mount. He presents him with a tremendous picture of the combat of the son of Jupiter with that flame-vomiting monster; he then adds:

* Ex illo celebratus honos, lætique minores”
Servavere diem: primusque Potitius auctor,
Et domus Herculei custos Pinaria sacri,
Hanc aram luco statuit: quæ maxima semper
Dicetur nobis, et erit quæ maxima semper.
Quare agité, O juvenes, tantarum in munere laudum,
Cingite fronde comas, et pocula porgite dextris;
Communemque vocate deum, et data vina volentes.
Dixerat: Herculea bicolor cum populus umbrâ
Velavitque comas, foliisque innexa pependit:

✦ From that blest hour th' Arcadian tribes bestow'd
These solemn honours on their guardian God.
Potitius first, his gratitude to prove,
Ador'd Alcides in the shady grove;

And with the old Pinarian sacred line

These altars rais'd, and paid the rites divine,
Rites, which our sons for ever shall maintain;

And ever sacred shall the grove remain.
Come then, with us to great Alcides pray,
And crown your heads, and-solemnize the day.
Invoke our common God with hymns divine,
And from the goblet pour the generous wine.
He said, and with the poplar's sacred boughs,
Like great Alcides, binds his hoary brows;

Rais'd

46

Et sacer implevit dextram scyphus. Ociùs omnes
In mensam læti libant, divosque precantur.

Devexo interea proprior fit vesper Olympo:
Jamque sacerdotes, primusque Potitius, ibant.
Pellibus in morem cincti, flammasque ferebaut.
Instaurant epulas, et mensæ grata secundæ
Dona ferunt: cumulantque oneratis lancibus aras.
Tum Salii ad cantus, incensa altaria circum.
Populeis adsunt evincti tempora ramis.

ENEID, B. viii. L. 268–286.

"From that period this sacred festival has been ❝ celebrated, and exulting posterity hails the return ❝of the annual day. Potitus has the honour of having first instituted it, and the Pinarian Family, to whom belongs the direction of this so"lemn service in honour of Hercules, reared this "altar in the hallowed grove: which ever shall be "called, and in my esteem ever shall be the most “venerable of altars. Come on then, my young "friends from Troy, in grateful remembrance of "merit so exalted, crown your brows with the fo"liage of his favourite tree, put your right hand to

Rais'd the crown'd goblet high, in open view :
With him, the guests the holy rite pursue,
And on the board the rich libation threw.

Now from before the rising shades of night,
Roll'd down the steep of Heav'n, the beamy light.
Clad in the fleecy spoils of sheep, proceed

The holy priests; Potitius at their head.

With flaming brands and, offerings, march the train,
And bid the hallow'd altars blaze again;

66

"the goblet; invoke a deity who shall be our com"mon protector, and pour out your joyful libations "of the juice of the grape. He said, and instantly "a poplar-branch of double-coloured foliage, from "the Herculean tree, shaded his hoary locks, and "in twisted sprigs hung gracefully down from his temples: The sacred bowl filled his right hand. "With holy ardour every one immediately poured "his libation on the table, and preferred his prayer. "Meanwhile the Star of Evening began to appear, the harbinger of approaching night and now a procession of Priests, Potitius led the train, "moved along, dressed, as the order of the feast

66

required, in the fleecy skins of the flock, and with

flaming torches in their hands. The banquet is "renewed, and the grateful delicacies of a second "table are served up while the altars are loaded "with piles of rich offerings. The Salians advance, "their brows adorned with boughs of poplar, and "surround the blazing altars with festive songs and "dances."

Every circumstance here detailed by the Poet is far from being a mere poetical fiction, but is a real tradition of the Roman History. According to Titus Livius, in the first Book of his History, Potitius and Pinarius were the Chiefs of two illustrious Roman families. Evander instructed them in the ritual of the worship to be paid to Hercules, and committed the conduct of it to their charge. Their posterity enjoyed the dignity of this priesthood, down to the censorship of Appius Claudius. The altar of Hercules, Ara Maxima, was at Rome, be

tween

tween the Aventine and the Palatine mountains, in the open place called Forum Boarium. The Salians were the Priests of Mars, instituted by Numa, to the number of twelve. Virgil proceeds on the supposition, according to some commentators, that they had existed ever since the days of King Evander, and that they sung in the sacrifices of Hercules. But there is a great appearance of prcbability, that Virgil in this likewise followed the Historical tradition; for we know how carefully he collected, with a kind of religious ardour, even the slightest prognostics and the most frivolous predictions, to which he assigned a first-rate importance the moment that they appeared in any respect connected with the foundation of the Roman Empire.

Rome was indebted then to the Arcadians for her principal religious usages. She was still farther indebted to them for others much more interesting to humanity; for Plutarch derives one of the etymologies of the name Patricians, an order established by Romulus, from the word "Patrocinium, "which means patronage, or protection; and this "word is used to this day in the same sense, because one of the leading men who accompanied "Evander into Italy was named Patronus, who being a person noted for a character of benefi

cence, and for granting support to the poorer " and more oppressed class of Mankind, commu"nicated his name to that office of humanity."

The sacrifice and the banquet of Evander terminated in a hymn to the honour of Herculus. I cannot resist the inclination which I feel to insert it

here,