A
DISSERTATION,
&c. &c.
SECTION I.
DR. WARBURTON, in his Divine Legation of Moses, has ingeniously proved, that the sixth book of Virgil’s Æneid represents some of the shews of the Eleusinian Mysteries; but, at the same time, has miserably failed in attempting to unfold their latent meaning, and obscure, though important, end. By the assistance, however, of the Platonic philosophy, I have been enabled to correct his errors, and to vindicate the wisdom of antiquity from his malevolent and ignorant aspersions, by a genuine account of this sublime institution; of which the following observations are designed as a comprehensive view.
In the first place, then, I shall present the reader with two remarkable authorities, and these perfectly demonstrative, in support of the assertion, that a part of the shews consisted in a representation of the infernal regions; authorities which, though of the last consequence, were unknown to Dr. Warburton himself. The first of these is from no less a person than the immortal Pindar, in a fragment preserved by Clemens Alexandrinus in Stromat. lib. 3. αλλα και Πινδαρος περι των εν Ελευσινι μυστηριων λεγων επιφερει. Ολ-
