Nor is it old Donatus only who relates this; we have the same account from another very credible and ancient author; so that here we have the judgment of Cicero, and the people of Rome, to confront the single opinion of this adventurous critic. A man ought to be well assured of his own abilities, before he attacks an author of established reputation. If Mr Fontenelle had perused the fragments of the Phoenician antiquity, traced the progress of learning through the ancient Greek writers, or so much as consulted his learned countryman Huetius, he would have found, (which falls out unluckily for him,) that a Chaldæan shepherd discovered to the Egyptians and Greeks the creation of the world. And what subject more fit for such a pastoral, than that great affair which was first notified to the world by one of that profession? Nor does it appear, (what he takes for granted,) that Virgil describes the original of the world according to the hypothesis of Epicurus. He was too well seen in antiquity to commit such a gross mistake; there is not the least mention of _chance_ in that whole passage, nor of the _clinamen principiorum_, so peculiar to Epicurus's hypothesis. Virgil had not only more piety, but was of too nice a judgment to introduce a god denying the power and providence of the Deity, and singing a hymn to the atoms and blind chance. On the contrary, his description agrees very well with that of Moses; and the eloquent commentator Dacier, who is so confident that Horace had perused the sacred history, might with greater reason have affirmed the same thing of Virgil; for, besides that famous passage in the sixth Æneïd, (by which this may be illustrated,) where the word _principio_ is used in the front of both by Moses and Virgil, and the seas are first mentioned, and the _spiritus intus alit_, which might not improbably, as M. Dacier would suggest, allude to the "_Spirit moving upon the face of the waters_;" but, omitting this parallel place, the successive formation of the world is evidently described in these words, _Rerum paulatim sumere formas_: And it is hardly possible to render more literally that verse of Moses, "_Let the waters be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear_," than in this of Virgil, _Jam durare solum, et discludere Nerea ponto._ After this, the formation of the sun is described, (exactly in the Mosaical order,) and, next, the production of the first living creatures, and that too in a small number, (still in the same method,) _Rara per ignotos errent animalia montes._