sometimes counsel takes, and sometimes tea.
For 1. The writer’s intention is here, not to affect the passions, or transport the fancy, but solely to divert and amuse. And to such end this species of trifling is very apposite. 2. The manner, which the burlesque epic takes to divert, is by confounding great things with small. A mode of speech then, which favours such confusion, is directly to its purpose. 3. This poem is, by its nature, satyrical, and, like the old comedy, delights in exposing the faults and vices of composition. So that the expression is here properly employed (and this was, perhaps, the first view of the writer) to ridicule the use of it in grave works. If M. D’Orville then could seriously design to confute Mr. Pope’s criticism by his own practice in that line of the Rape of the Lock, he has only shewn, that he does not, in the least, comprehend the real genius of this poem. But to return:
There is, as appears to me, but one case, in which this double sense of words can be admitted in the more solemn forms of poetry. It is, when, besides the plain literal meaning, which the context demands, the mind is carried forward to some more illustrious and important object. We have an instance in the famous line of Virgil,
Attollens humeris famamque et fata nepotum.
But this is so far from contradicting, that it furthers the writer’s proper intention. We are not called off from the subject matter to the observation of a conceit, but to the admiration of kindred sublime conceptions. For even here, it is to be observed, there is always required some previous dependency and relationship, though not extremely obvious, in the natures of the things themselves, whereon to ground and justify the analogy. Otherwise, the intention of the double sense is perfectly inexcusable.
But the instance from Virgil, as we have seen it explained (and for the first time) by a great critic[42], is so curious, that I shall be allowed to enlarge a little upon it: and the rather as Virgil’s practice in this instance will let us into the true secret of conducting these double senses.
The comment of Servius on this line is remarkable. “Hunc versum notant Critici, quasi superfluè et inutiliter additum, nec convenientem gravitati ejus, namque est magis neotericus.” Mr. Addison conceived of it in the same manner when he said, “This was the only witty line in the Æneis;” meaning such a line as Ovid would have written. We see the opinion which these Critics entertained of the double sense, in general, in the greater Poetry. They esteemed it a wanton play of fancy, misbecoming the dignity of the writer’s work, and the gravity of his character. They took it, in short, for a mere modern flourish, totally different from the pure unaffected manner of genuin antiquity. And thus far they unquestionably judged right. Their defect was in not seeing that the use of it, as here employed by the Poet, was an exception to the general rule. But to have seen this was not, perhaps, to be expected even from these Critics.
However, from this want of penetration arose a difficulty in determining whether to read, Facta or Fata Nepotum. And, as we now understand that Servius and his Critics were utter strangers to Virgil’s noble idea, it is no wonder they could not resolve it. But the latter is the Poet’s own word. He considered this shield of celestial make as a kind of Palladium, like the Ancile, which fell from Heaven, and used to be carried in procession on the shoulders of the Salii. “Quid de scutis,” says Lactantius, “jam vetustate putridis dicam? Quae cum portant, Deos ipsos se gestare Humeris suis arbitrantur.” [Div. Inst. l. i. c. 21.]
Virgil, in a fine flight of imagination, alludes to this venerable ceremony, comparing, as it were, the shield of his Hero to the sacred Ancile; and in conformity to the practice in that sacred procession represents his Hero in the priestly office of Religion,
Attollens Humero famamque et FATA Nepotum.