and he would also have seen, at least in essence, the answer to a number of the problems which he raises, but does not profess to solve. (…) The truth is that there is no answer to these questions just because Vergil intended there to be no answer. He knew what, apparently, is hard for any commentator to believe, that to pronounce sentence on such cassias these would be at once to forfeit his readers’ confidence, to desert poetry which much teach by suggestion, for the dogmatic philosophy or theology which teaches assertion. (…) And above all poets, Vergil most loved this method of silence, of opening questions, and leaving them unclosed. The Sixth Book even more than the rest owes its hold upon the imagination of Europe to the way in which Vergil’s instinct shaped by almost lifelong reflection has guided him through a maze of incredible and often gruesome mythology, dwelling only on such parts of the old-world pictures as he felt still to have an ethical meaning, and quite deliberately leaving on one side problems which no mortal could answer without stirring disbelief. (…) A certain number of Professor Butler’s statements are demonstrably erroneous. The worst of these do not directly concern the Sixth Book, but they show how impossible it is to expound that Book properly without a sound knowledge of the rest of Vergil. (…) In linguistic matters the book is weak. (…) Some of the obscurities are due to the numerous misprints. The proofreading has been very badly done, no doubt mainly through the absence of any proper qualified reader in the printer’s office. If only Professor Butler had given as much thought and care to the commentary in general as he has given to his best notes, the book would be very good indeed.’ (R.S. CONWAY in The Classical Review, 1921, pp.163-167).