“All the description of his future race from Ascanius, and the battles, in the order in which they should occur.” It would have been impossible for the poet, in the same short space of time occupied by Vulcan in his work, to mention by name the long line of descendants, and to tell of all their battles in the order of their occurrence. That seems to be the meaning of Servius’s somewhat obscure words: “Opportune ergo Virgilius, quia non videtur simul et narrationis celeritas potuisse connecti, et opus tam velociter expedire, ut ad verbum posset occurrere.” Since Virgil could bring forward but a small part of “the unnarratable text of the shield,” and not even that little while Vulcan was at work, he was obliged to reserve it till the whole was finished. For Virgil’s sake, I hope that this argument of Servius is baseless. My excuse is much more creditable to him. What need was there of putting the whole of Roman history on a shield? With few pictures Homer made his shield an epitome of all that was happening in the world. It would almost seem that Virgil, despairing of surpassing the Greek in the design and execution of his pictures, was determined to exceed him at least in their number, and that would have been the height of childishness. NOTE 40, p. 118. “Scuto ejus, in quo Amazonum prœlium cælavit intumescente ambitu parmæ; ejusdem concava parte deorum et gigantum, dimicationem.” “Her shield, on the convex side of which he sculptured a battle of the Amazons, and on the concave side the contest of the gods and giants.” (Plinius, lib. xxxvi. sect. 4.) NOTE 41, p. 122. The first begins at line 483 and goes to line 489; the second extends from 490 to 509; the third, from 510 to 540; the fourth, from 541 to 549; the fifth, from 550 to 560; the sixth, from 561 to 572; the seventh, from 573 to 586; the eighth, from 587 to 589; the ninth, from 590 to 605; and the tenth, from 606 to 608. The third picture alone is not so introduced; but that it is one by itself is evident from the words introducing the second,—ἐν δὲ δύω ποίησε πόλεις,—as also from the nature of the subject. NOTE 42, p. 123. Iliad, vol. v. obs. p. 61. In this passage Pope makes an entirely false use of the expression “aerial perspective,” which, in fact, has nothing to do with the diminishing of the size according to the increased distance, but refers only to the change of color occasioned by the air or other medium through which the object is seen. A man capable of this blunder may justly be supposed ignorant of the whole subject. NOTE 43, p. 128.