CHAPTER X.

THE FUTURE STATE.

SECT. I.

All nations have acknowledged a future state—Views of the Greeks— The realms of the shades visited by the Grecian heroes-Details of the poets-Homer's evocation of the ghosts-Their appetite for blood-Earthly passions and discontents-Reward scantily conferred-Retribution abundant, but not always equitable-No felicity for the good-Fabulous punishment of the wicked-Virgil-. Inimitable description of the entrance into hell—Various regions— Their inhabitants-Tartarus-The surrounding and fiery deluge of Phlegethon-Terrific punishments-Elysium-Poetical embellishments-Meads, groves, streams-Insipid enjoyments-Continued predominance of earthly passions and desires-Moral estimate-Violation of all probability and justice by the poet-The terrors of his ghosts-Their cold and languid silence-Their mangled or mutilated limbs―Their unspiritual character-Their unimproved existence-Philosophy of Virgil in his views of hellAmbiguous and obscure-Purgation preparatory to Elysium-Elysium to be succeeded, after a thousand years, by a state of transmigration-The change unaccounted for-Philosophers of Greece and Rome-Various and contradictory opinions on the nature of the soul-Doctrine of Pythagoras and of Plato-Their metempsychosis-The three-fold nature of the soul—The soul an emanation from God, and to return, after due purifications in its earthly state, to its original source-Contradiction and absurdity of these tenets -Socrates-His uncertainty and doubts-General scepticism of the learned avowed and diffused.

THE tenet of a future state has been embraced by every nation of the earth. It remained not to be diffused by the reasonings of the philosopher, or the enunciations of the legislator. The ignorant

and the wise, the rude and the civilized, have here agreed; and the hopes and fears of men, taking the same direction, have universally anticipated in futurity the rewards and punishments due to the good and evil deeds of the virtuous and of the wicked.

But, though these anticipations were every where felt, they were various and vague. The persuasion was the same in principle, but the heaven and the hell to which it looked forward were of no uniform character. Folly and inconsistency were mingled in every creed, varying the modes, while they affirmed the reality, of a future existence; and the faith which clung to the doctrine remained unshaken, while the conjectures to which the doctrine gave rise were, generally, as discordant, as they were numerous and absurd.

Nations yet uncivilized and untaught, are proportionally governed by the demands and pleasures of sense. They, therefore, look to hereafter, but as to a region in which sensuality is to enjoy unbounded gratification; and the objects most ardently pursued and passionately desired in this world, are to be the great objects of pursuit and desire in the next. The warrior shall have the glory of his battles renewed. The hunter shall be accompanied by his dog, and occupied in the chace. The conqueror

* In the Gothic paradise, the Shades, after they have caparisoned themselves in the morning, resume their arms, enter the lists, proceed to combat, and inflict and endure innumerable wounds.. But the hour of repast is that of peace. As it approaches, the combatants relax in their ferocity, and return, safe and sound, to enjoy their cups in the hall of Odin. There they renew the revels of earth, till the morning again arrives, and they are called to renew the achievements of their wonted battles. See the Edda Northern Antiq. vol. ii. p. 109. Keysler. Antiq. Septent. et Celt. p. 127.

shall quaff his favourite beverage from the skull of the enemy he has slain; and the voluptuary shall enjoy the delights of the feast and the song, and be served by the grateful homage of his most favoured nymphs.

It might be supposed that these rude notions. would be rejected with disdain by the more intellectual fancy of the civilized and the refined. But, in this respect, there was little variation of opinion. The Greek and the Roman did not surpass, in the spirituality of their persuasion, the wild barbarian whom they affected to despise; and the heaven of the savage, whose anticipations were so stupid or so impure, was not more gross and sensual in its enjoyments, than the Elysium which has been so studiously embellished by the taste, the conjectures, and the fancy, of classical antiquity.

Many were the voyages undertaken to the region. of the Shades, by the heroic temerity of former times. Orpheus penetrated into the realms of darkness in quest of his beloved Eurydice. Theseus and Pirithous accomplished the same adventure to deliver the captive Proserpine. Hercules liberated the royal Athenian, and dragged the monster Cerberus to earth. Bacchus delighted to visit the shade of his mother Semele in the bowers of Elysium. And Rampsinothes, king of Egypt, enjoyed the society of Ceres in the halls of her son-in-law Pluto, and returned to earth distinguished by the love, and loaded with the gifts, of the enamoured goddess *.

In the description of scenes which so many heroes were permitted to visit, the imagination of the poet has exercised its highest powers. Hesiod, Homer,

*Herodot. lib. x. c. 122.

and Pindar, among the Greeks, and Virgil, Catullus, and Claudian, among the Latins, have not been the sole poets of Greece and Rome, who have iudulged in repeating or in embellishing the popular tales of Elysium or of Tartarus; and the joys and sufferings of the future, according to the superstitious reveries of the times, have been enumerated in the verse of prophet bards with all the fervor of fancy, and all the piety of faith.

But it is to Homer and Virgil that we are principally to refer for the general creed on the subject of future punishment and reward. Of the felicities of hereafter the former poet has told little, and told it feebly and coldly, though he has adverted with energy and boldness to the torments which await the wicked. Virgil is more costly and sumptuous in the decorations which he lavishes on his realms of immortality and joy, as well as more terrific and sublime in the views which he has exhibited of the regions of retribution. By a study of both, we may acquire a sufficient knowledge of the world of Shadows, and learn how far the popular belief in the blessings of Elysium and the woes of Phlegethon, was calculated to strengthen the motives of piety and of virtue, or repress the madness and audacity of crime.

I. After Ulysses had traversed the expanse of ocean, he arrived, says the poet, on the confines of hell, to consult the shade of the prophetic Tiresias. The mystic evocation was commenced. Vows were made. Libations of wine and honey were consecrated to the dead. The victims were slain; and a trench was filled with the sacrificial blood of a ewe and a ram. Instantly, innumerable ghosts arose, and fluttered, shrieking and twittering, round the

fosse. But they were chased away by the falchion of Ulysses; and the old Seer, who advanced with a golden sceptre in his hand, was permitted to lap the blood, the scent of which had provoked the appetite of the Shades, and seduced them from their abodes. The hunger or thirst of the prophet having been satisfied, the silence which he had hitherto maintained was no longer observed *. He poured forth his inspirations without reluctance, expatiated amply on the future and the past, replied to the questions which were proposed by the royal Ithacan, and, at length, his task being done, returned in sad and lonely solemnity to the gloomy regions from which he had been called.

The other ghosts were no longer repelled by the gleam of the falchion. They approached the trench, and having sufficiently satisfied their appetite for blood, they successively revealed to the curiosity of Ulysses, a succinct, and sometimes garrulous, detail of their former lives.

Of this talkative and shadowy multitude many had been guilty of flagrant crimes, and many had exercised exalted virtues. But no allusion is made by the poet to tribunal or trial, or to the justice which had pronounced the final sentence and unalterable allotment of the good and the bad; and of the whole assembly of Shades thus raised by the charm of evocation, there does not appear to have been one who was distinguished from another by any condemnation or applause, or by any discriminative mark of recompence or of retribution.

During this singular vision we look in vain for

* The taste of the blood was necessary to render the ghosts communicative. Odyss. xv.