Warburton’s remark on this last line may have the force of an explanation by the poet himself. “He uses _pure_ equivocally, to signify either chaste or empty; and has given in this line what he esteemed the true character of descriptive poetry, as it is called,—a composition, in his opinion, as absurd as a feast made up of sauces. The use of a picturesque imagination is to brighten and adorn good sense: so that to employ it only in description, is like children’s delighting in a prism for the sake of its gaudy colors, which, when frugally managed and artfully disposed, might be made to represent and illustrate the noblest objects in nature.” Both poet and commentator seem to have regarded the matter rather from a moral than an artistic point of view. But so much the better that this style of poetry seems equally worthless from whichever point it be viewed. NOTE 38, p. 108. Poétique Française, T. ii. p. 501. “J’écrivais ces réflexions avant que les essais des Allemands dans ce genre (l’Eglogue) fussent connus parmi nous. Ils ont exécuté ce que j’avais conçu; et s’ils parviennent à donner plus au moral et moins au détail des peintures physiques, ils excelleront dans ce genre, plus riche, plus vaste, plus fécond, et infiniment plus naturel et plus moral que celui de la galanterie champêtre.” NOTE 39, p. 115. I see that Servius attempts to excuse Virgil on other grounds, for the difference between the two shields has not escaped his notice. “Sane interest inter hunc et Homeri clypeum; illic enim singula dum fiunt narrantur; hic vero perfecto opere nascuntur; nam et hic arma prius accipit Æneas, quam spectaret; ibi postquam omnia narrata sunt, sic a Thetide deferuntur ad Achillem.” There is a marked difference between this and the shield of Homer: for there events are narrated one by one as they are done, here they are known by the finished work; here the arms are received by Æneas before being seen, there, after all has been told, they are carried by Thetis to Achilles. (Ad. v. 625, lib. viii. Æneid.) Why? “For this reason,” says Servius: “because, on the shield of Æneas, were represented not only the few events referred to by the poet, but,— ... genus omne futuræ Stirpis ab Ascanio, pugnataque in ordine bella,