New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-11-10
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
THEyIRGIL MYTHOLOGY.

THEVlhIlL M 11hoLOui'
ssexsTEK VIRGIL. The Author Of the Aeneid as he
seemed in the Middle Ages. series Oh s'uuies'
Nv J. S. TUNISON. vo PIP. 23o Cincinnau:
kobc, Clarke q Co.
THIS is o curious and interesting work. 1t may
~ regaSded as q study in myth-maklng ana IL
Is certainly most pregnant Illustration OF the
facility with which legends grow up around the
memory Of some famous parsonage In ignorant ana
'sredulcuD ages. The poet Virgil was for many
lcenries the centre of one Of those strange cults
and she widest traditions became encrusted upon
shjs name. like limpets upon rock. Mr.. Tunlson
mas in this volume worked practically virgin
Meld. Naude and some indefatgable Germans
were before him in some branches of his inquiry,
but no earter student has gone so carefully and
thoroughly into the whole subject, and no English
work deals with it in q satisfactory way. The
extent of the mythology which had to be eX-
Ismined in order to prepare such a volume is in
atself surprising. The imagination Of the Middle
Ages was indeed prolific in the creation of legends,
and in nothing is this fecundity more conspicuousy
exhibited than in the Virgilan mythology Mr.
Tunison has found it necessary to arrange his
subjects under various headings, as "Virgil and
the Devil" Virgil in Literary Tradition" Vir-
sgirs Book Of Magic" Virgil the Man of Science"
= Vigil che Saviour of Rome Virgil the
Lever" Virgil the Prophet" etc. We are not
prepared to 20 all the way with the ingenious
author ia his efforts explain the genesis of the
swarming Virgil myths. Some of his theories
are in fact decidedly far-fetched and inadequate.
We cannot but feel. moreover that he would have
btrengthened the illustrative value of his works
had he given more space TO comparative refer
ences, for instance. to the analogous case Of
Apolonius of Tyana, the growth and extent of
whose mythology is perhaps only less wonderful
than that Of Marc Virgil, however, occupies q
peculiar position In that the legends about him
began during the classical period; almost if not
quite during his own life, in fact and continued
20 expand throughout the Middle Ages, taking
On tho color of the times in a variety of amusing
ways Mediaevalism, too, invented the most
grotesque and, so to speak, fragrant myths 1t
made the Mantuan poet a magician of the Faust
type; represented him forming contracts with
The devil with hordes of small devils; ascribed
10 him powers many Of which manifestly
products Of Oriental fancy, and quite subordinated
bis literary to his thaumaturgic fame. We see
him discovering bottle filled with devils, who
teach him magic art the price of their freedom.
This motive plainly belongs to the Arabian legends
of literature But in truth. Eastern and Western
imagination are DO mingled in large proportion
of these stories that Acknowledgement has become
tmpracticable. Virgil as a magician does all
manner of marvels. He makes magical
or prevent the eruptions Of burning noun
tans. He bsnishes insects by making bronze or
gold flies and inves. lng them with talismanio
powers He is the inventor Of magic mirrors
which exhibit events occurring at great distances
lie is a physician, man of science a great mathe-
matdcian, and finally, prophet who foretold the
advent .of Christianity Besides all this the
grammarians made fetish of him. and the
pedants, proceeding after their kind, probed his
verses for occult meanings until they had evolved
che strangest fantastic interpretations allegorica
political. prophetical ma gical and otherwise. The
medieval prototypes of the nineteenth century
critics who delight in reading hidden meanings into
Shakespeare and Goethe and other comparatively
recent writers were bad enough to make one forget
the follies of their later followers, however Their
general ignorance and dominant pedantry deprived
them of all taste and judgment, and as a result
they took such monstrous liberties with their
author as might we'll have made the poor poet
turn in his grave.
Between schoolmen and Teutonic demonoaters
tho identity of Virgil presently became lost and
in the end his classical connections were so COM
pletely forgotten that he was represented as a
medieval knight, and one legend went the
length Of marrying him to a kings daughter, by
an archbishop, in n cathedral Considering that
one of his claims TO remembrance was his pro
who, if he ever visited the glimpses of the
moon must long before this have become as con-
fused and uncertain TO his own identity as
was the little old in Mother Goose's anthol-
ogy. The general explanation preferred by Mr..
Hunison is the by no means adequate one that
of old all special knowledge was looked upon by
the masses as evidence of magical powers-the herd
being unable to understand how any person could
learn mathematics. for example, without super
natural aid. The illustration is not the happiest
inasmuch numbers were beyond question in
vested with occult powers not merely by the ig-
norant masses but by the learned minority Mr..
Tunison does not appear to have studied the Py-
thagorean system or he could have not taken the
view he has concerning the popular estimate of
mathematics. In setting down Cardan and Para
celsius quacks and nothing else, he is equally at
fault Mr.. Morley's researches would have taught
him better as regards Cardan, and there is abun-
dant evidence that Paracelsus was much more than
an empyric beyond the incontestabe obligations
chemistry is under to him.
In more than one instance we have found
Mr.. Tunison open to the charge of superfciality
which he so hastily brings against some other
writer's. In his eagerness TO explain the origin
of the curious legends he has collected and his
desire to be recognized follower of that modern
school which seeks to reduce all folklore TO q
simplicity wholly incompatible with fidelity to
human nature, he sometimes proposes theories
which are far BOO bold to be accepted. Popular
Ignorance and credulity will no doubt account
for . great deal, but not for everything. In
many of the myths brought together by Mr..
Tunison there are peculiarites which render the
origin of them quite inexplicable on the loose
general hypothesis adopted by him. The truth
Is that no purely mechanical theory will explain
these traditions and myths. The people of the
Middle Ages were certainly very simple, but it is
obvious in many cases their simplicity alone makes
It incredible that they should have invented stories