The heliacal rising of a constellation is when it comes from under the rays of the sun, and begins to appear before daylight. The achronical rising, on the contrary, is when it appears at the close of day, and in opposition of the sun's diurnal course. The heliacal rising of Orion is at present computed to be about the 6th of July; and about that time it is that he either causes or presages tempests on the seas.
Segrais has observed farther, that when Anna counsels Dido to stay AEneas during the winter, she speaks also of Orion:-
"Dum pelago desaevit hiems, et aquosus Orion."
If therefore Ilioneus, according to our supposition, understand the heliacal rising of Orion, Anna must mean the achronical, which the different epithets given to that constellation seem to manifest.
Ilioneus calls him nimbosus, Anna, aquosus. He is tempestuous in the summer, when he rises heliacally; and rainy in the winter, when he rises achronically. Your lordship will pardon me for the frequent repetition of these cant words, which I could not avoid in this abbreviation of Segrais, who, I think, deserves no little commendation in this new criticism.
I have yet a word or two to say of Virgil's machines, from my own observation of them. He has imitated those of Homer, but not copied them. It was established long before this time, in the Roman religion as well as in the Greek, that there were gods, and both nations for the most part worshipped the same deities, as did also the Trojans (from whom the Romans, I suppose, would rather be thought to derive the rites of their religion than from the Grecians, because they thought themselves descended from them).
Each of those gods had his proper office, and the chief of them their particular attendants. Thus Jupiter had in propriety Ganymede and Mercury, and Juno had Iris. It was not for Virgil, then, to Create new ministers; he must take what he found in his religion.
It cannot therefore be said that he borrowed them from Homer, any more than from Apollo, Diana, and the rest, whom he uses as he finds occasion for them, as the Grecian poet did; but he invents the occasions for which he uses them. Venus, after the destruction of Troy, had gained Neptune entirely to her party; therefore we find him busy in the beginning of the "AEneis" to calm the tempest raised by AEolus, and afterwards conducting the Trojan fleet to Cumes in safety, with the loss only of their pilot, for whom he bargains. I name those two examples--amongst a hundred which I omit--to prove that Virgil, generally speaking, employed his machines in performing those things which might possibly have been done without them. What more frequent than a storm at sea upon the rising of Orion? What wonder if amongst so many ships there should one be overset, which was commanded by Orontes, though half the winds had not been there which AEolus employed? Might not Palinurus, without a miracle, fall asleep and drop into the sea, having been over-wearied with watching, and secure of a quiet passage by his observation of the skies? At least AEneas, who knew nothing of the machine of Somnus, takes it plainly in this sense:-
"O nimium coelo et pelago confise sereno, Nudus in ignota, Palinure, jacebis arena."
But machines sometimes are specious things to amuse the reader, and give a colour of probability to things otherwise incredible; and, besides, it soothed the vanity of the Romans to find the gods so visibly concerned in all the actions of their predecessors. We who are better taught by our religion, yet own every wonderful accident which befalls us for the best, to be brought to pass by some special providence of Almighty God, and by the care of guardian angels; and from hence I might infer that no heroic poem can be writ on the Epicurean principles, which I could easily demonstrate if there were need to prove it or I had leisure.
When Venus opens the eyes of her son AEneas to behold the gods who combated against Troy in that fatal night when it was surprised, we share the pleasure of that glorious vision (which Tasso has not ill copied in the sacking of Jerusalem). But the Greeks had done their business though neither Neptune, Juno, or Pallas had given them their divine assistance. The most crude machine which Virgil uses is in the episode of Camilla, where Opis by the command of her mistress kills Aruns. The next is in the twelfth AEneid, where Venus cures her son AEneas. But in the last of these the poet was driven to a necessity, for Turnus was to be slain that very day; and AEneas, wounded as he was, could not have engaged him in single combat unless his hurt had been miraculously healed and the poet had considered that the dittany which she brought from Crete could not have wrought so speedy an effect without the juice of ambrosia which she mingled with it. After all, that his machine might not seem too violent, we see the hero limping after Turnus; the wound was skinned, but the strength of his thigh was not restored. But what reason had our author to wound AEneas at so critical a time? And how came the cuishes to be worse tempered than the rest of his armour, which was all wrought by Vulcan and his journeymen? These difficulties are not easily to be solved without confessing that Virgil had not life enough to correct his work, though he had reviewed it and found those errors, which he resolved to mend; but being prevented by death, and not willing to leave an imperfect work behind him, he ordained by his last testament that his "AEneis" should be burned. As for the death of Aruns, who was shot by a goddess, the machine was not altogether so outrageous as the wounding Mars and Venus by the sword of Diomede. Two divinities, one would have thought, might have pleaded their prerogative of impassibility, or at least not have been wounded by any mortal hand.
