People
in those ages held that a powerful enchanter, exorciser, &c., must have
a magician amongst his _cognati_; the power must run in the blood,
which on the maternal side could be undeniably ascertained. Under this
preconception, they took Magus not for a proper name, but for a
professional designation. Amongst many illustrations of the magical
character sustained by Virgil in the middle ages, we may mention that a
writer, about the year 1200, or the era of our Robin Hood, published by
Montfaucon, and cited by Gibbon in his last volume, says of Virgil,--
that '_Captus a Romanis invisibiliter exiit, ivitque Neapopolim_.'] so
little indeed does the AEneid exhibit of human life in its
multiformity, that much tampering with the text is required
to bring real cases of human interest and real situations within the
scope of any Virgilian sentence, though aided by the utmost latitude of
accommodation. A king, a soldier, a sailor, &c., might look for
correspondences to their own circumstances; but not many others.
Accordingly, everybody remembers the remarkable answer which Charles I.
received at Oxford from this Virgilian oracle, about the opening of the
Parliamentary war. But from this limitation in the range of ideas it
was that others, and very pious people too, have not thought it profane
to resume the old reliance on the Scriptures.
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