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It would be out of place here to discuss the various conjectures of the learned as to who the Child was, to whose birth the poet thus looks forward. Whether it was a son of the Consul Pollio himself, who died in his infancy; or the expected offspring of Augustus's marriage with Scribonia, which was, after all, a daughter—Julia—whose profligate life and unhappy death were a sad contradiction of Virgil's anticipations; or a child of Octavia, sister of Augustus;—which of these it was, or whether it was any one of them, neither ancient nor modern commentators have been able to decide. "It is not certain," says Mr Conington, "that the child ever was born; it is certain that, if born, he did not become the regenerator of his time." It is possible, too, that the whole form of the poem may be strictly imaginary—that the child had been born already, long ago, and that it was no other than Octavianus Cæsar—and that Virgil does but use here the licence of poetry to express his hopes of a golden age that might follow the peace of Brundusium. And as to how far this very remarkable poem may or may not be regarded as one of what Archbishop Trench, has called "the unconscious prophecies of heathendom," would be to open a field of inquiry of the