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 D'Acier, who is so confident that Horace had perus'd the Sacred History, might with greater Reason have affirm'd the same thing of Virgil. For, besides that Famous Passage in the Sixth Æneid, (by which this may be illustrated,) where the word Principio is us'd in the front of both by Moses and Virgil, and the Seas are first mention'd, and the Spiritus intus alit, which might not improbably, as Mr. D'Acier 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 describ'd in these words,
Rerum paulatim sumere formas;
And tis 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, & discludere Nerea Ponto.
After this the formation of the Sun is describ'd (exactly in the Mosaical order,) and
