The _Observations_ are rarely, if ever, quoted as an authority of weight by any one engaged on classical or Virgilian literature.

This arises from the attitude of the writer, who is nearly solely occupied with establishing negative conclusions that AEneas was _not_ a lawgiver, that the Sixth AEneid is _not_ an allegory, that Virgil had _not_ been initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries when he wrote it, and so forth.

Indeed the best judges now hold that he has not done full justice to the grain of truth that was to be found in Warburton's clumsy and prolix hypothesis.[8] It should be added that Gibbon very candidly admits and regrets the acrimonious style of the pamphlet, and condemns still more "in a personal attack his cowardly concealment of his name and character." FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 8: Conington, _Introduction to the Sixth AEneid_.

"A reader of the present day will, I think, be induced to award the palm of learning and ingenuity to Warburton." "The language and imagery of the sixth book more than once suggest that Virgil intended to embody in his picture the poetical view of that inner side of ancient religion which the mysteries may be supposed to have presented."-- _Suggestion on the Study of the AEneid_, by H.Nettleship, p.

13.] The _Observations_ were the last work which Gibbon published in his father's lifetime.