OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

269

the guilt of human kind, and govern the peace- chap.

ful universe with the virtues of his father; the.

rise and appearance of an heavenly race, a pri-mitive nation throughout the world ; and thegradual restoration of the innocence and felicityof the golden age. The poet was perhaps un-conscious of the secret sense and object of thesesublime predictions, which have been so un-worthily applied to the infant son of a consul,or a triumvirbut if a more splendid, andindeed specious, interpretation of the fourtheclogue contributed to the conversion of thefirst Christian emperor, Virgil may deserve tobe ranked among the most successful mission-aries of the gospeI. p

The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and Devotionworship were concealed from the eyes of stran- ? e g« P of ngers, and even of catechumens, with an affected ^“" 8tan 'secrecy, which served to excite their wonderand curiosity. q But the severe rules of disci-pline which the prudence of the bishops had in-stituted, were relaxed by the same prudence infavour of an imperial proselyte, whom it was so

0 The different claims of an elder and younger son of Pollio , of Ju-lia, of Drusus, of Marcellas, are found to be incompatible with chrono-logy, history, and the good sense of Virgil .

p See Lowth de Sacra Poesi Hebracortim Preselect, xxi, p. 2S9, 293.

In the examination of the fourth eclogue, the respectable bishop ofLondon has displayed learning, taste, ingenuity, and a temperate en-thusiasm, which exalts his fancy without degrading iiis judgment.

$ The distinction between the public and the secret parts of divineservice, the missa catechumc-noru/n and the missajideliuni, and the mys-terious veil which piety or policy had cast over the latter, are very judiciously explained by Thiers, Exposition du Saint Saerement, 1. i»c. 8-12, p. 59-91: but as, on this subject, the papists may reasonablybe suspected, a protestant reader will depend with more confidence onthe learned Bingham. Antiquities, 1. x, c. 5.