ge when mankind had not as yet made any great progress in
the exertion of either intellect or imagination, and he was therefore
indebted for big resources to the vast capacity of his own mind. To this
we must add, that he composed both his poems in a situation of life
extremely unfavourable to the cultivation of poetry. Virgil, on the
contrary, lived at a period when literature had attained to a high state
of improvement. He had likewise not only the advantage of finding a
model in the works of Homer, but of perusing the laws of epic poetry,
which had been digested by Aristotle, and the various observations made
on the writings of the Greek bard by critics of acuteness and taste;
amongst the chief of whom was his friend Horace, who remarks that

--------quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.--De Arte Poet.

E'en sometimes the good Homer naps.

Virgil, besides, composed his poem in a state remote from indigence,
where he was roused to exertion by the example of several contemporary
poets; and what must have animated him beyond every other consideration,
he wrote both at the desire, and under the patronage of the emperor and
his minister Mecaenas. In what time Homer composed either of his poems,
we know not; but the Aeneid, we are informed, was the employment of
Virgil during eleven years. For some years, the repeated entreaties of
Augustus could not extort from him the smallest specimen of the work; but
at length, when considerably advanced in it, he condescended to recite
three books--the second, the fourth, and the sixth--in the presence of
the emperor and his sister Octavia, to gratify the latter of whom, in
particular, the recital of the last book now mentioned, was intended.
When the poet came to the words, Tu Marcellus eris, alluding to Octavia's
son, a youth of great hopes, who had lately died, the mother fainted.
After she had recovered from this fit, by the care of her attendants, she
ordered ten sesterces to be given to Virgil for every line relating (171)
to that subject; a gratuity which amounted to about two thousand pounds
sterling.

In the composition of the Aeneid, Virgil scrupled not to introduce whole
lines of Homer, and of the Latin poet Ennius; many of whose sentences he
admired. In a few instances he has borrowed from Lucretius. He is said
to have been at extraordinary pains in polishing his numbers; and when he
was doubtful of any passage, he would read it to some of his friends,