ALL general privations are great, because they are all terrible; vacuity, darkness, solitude, and silence. With what a fire of imagination, yet with what severity of judgment, has Virgil amassed all these circumstances, where he knows that all the images of a tremendous dignity ought to be united at the mouth of hell! Where, before he unlocks the secrets of the great deep, he seems to be seized with a religious horror, and to retire astonished at the boldness of his own design:

Dii, quibus imperium est animarum, umbr?que silentes!

Et Chaos, et Phlegethon! loca nocte silentia late!

Sit mihi fas audita loqui! sit numine vestro

Pandere res alta terra et caligine mersas!

Ibant obscu............