"What's meant by increasing the year? Did the gods or goddesses add more months, or days, or hours, to it? Or how can arva tueri signify to wear rural honours? Is this to translate, or abuse an author? The next couplet is borrowed from Ogylby, I suppose, because less to the purpose than ordinary.
Ver. 33.
"The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar guard.
"Idle, and none of Virgil's, no more than the sense of the precedent couplet; so again, he interpolates Virgil with that and the round circle of the year to guide powerful of blessings, which thou strew'st around; a ridiculous Latinism, and an impertinent addition; indeed the whole period is but one piece of absurdity and nonsense, as those who lay it with the original must find.
Ver. 42, 43.
"And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea.
"Was he consul or dictator there?
"And wat'ry virgins for thy bed shall strive.
"Both absurd interpolations."
Ver. 47, 48.