ore elaborate interpretation of Bishop
Warburton, the descent to hell is not a false, but a mimic scene; which
represents the initiation of AEneas, in the character of a law-giver,
to the Eleusinian mysteries. This hypothesis, a singular chapter in
the Divine Legation of Moses, had been admitted by many as true; it
was praised by all as ingenious; nor had it been exposed, in a space of
thirty years, to a fair and critical discussion. The learning and
the abilities of the author had raised him to a just eminence; but he
reigned the dictator and tyrant of the world of literature. The real
merit of Warburton was degraded by the pride and presumption with which
he pronounced his infallible decrees; in his polemic writings he lashed
his antagonists without mercy or moderation; and his servile flatterers,
(see the base and malignant Essay on the Delicacy of Friendship,)
exalting the master critic far above Aristotle and Longinus, assaulted
every modest dissenter who refused to consult the oracle, and to adore
the idol. In a land of liberty, such despotism must provoke a general
opposition, and the zeal of opposition is seldom candid or impartial.
A late professor of Oxford, (Dr. Lowth,) in a pointed and polished
epistle, (Aug. 31, 1765,) defended himself, and attacked the Bishop;
and, whatsoever might be the merits of an insignificant controversy, his
victory was clearly established by the silent confusion of Warburton
and his slaves. I too, without any private offence, was ambitious of
breaking a lance against the giant's shield; and in the beginning of the
year 1770, my Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the AEneid
were sent, without my name, to the press. In this short Essay, my first
English publication, I aimed my strokes against the person and
the hypothesis of Bishop Warburton. I proved, at least to my own
satisfaction, that the ancient lawgivers did not invent the mysteries,
and that AEneas was never invested with the office of lawgiver: that
there is not any argument, any circumstance, which can melt a fable into
allegory, or remove the scene from the Lake Avernus to the Temple of
Ceres: that such a wild supposition is equally injurious to the poet and
the man: that if Virgil was not initiated he could not, if he were, he
would not, reveal the secrets of the initiation: that the anathema of
Horace (vetabo qui Cereris sacrum vulgarit, &c.) at once attests his own
ignorance and the innocence of his friend. As the