Chapter 7

Sacra, suosque tibi commendat Troja penates.

As for Augustus, or his uncle Julius, claiming by descent from Æneas, that title is already out of doors. Æneas succeeded not, but was elected. Troy was fore-doomed to fall for ever.

Postquam res Asiæ Priamique evertere gentemImmeritam visum superis.—Æneïs, Lib. III. v. 1.

Augustus, it is true, had once resolved to rebuild that city, and there to make the seat of empire: but Horace writes an ode on purpose to deter him from that thought; declaring the place to be accursed, and that the gods would as often destroy it, as it should be raised.[49]Hereupon the emperor laid aside a project so ungrateful to the Roman people. But by this, my lord, we may conclude, that he had still his pedigree in his head, and had an itch of being thought a divine king, if his poets had not given him better counsel.

I will pass by many less material objections, for want of room to answer them: what follows next is of great importance, if the critics can make out their charge; for it is levelled at the manners which our poet gives his hero, and which are the same which were eminently seen in his Augustus. Those manners were, piety to the gods and a dutiful affection to his father, love to his relations, care of his people, courage and conduct in the wars, gratitude to those who had obliged him, and justice in general to mankind.

Piety, as your lordship sees, takes place of all, as the chief part of his character; and the word in Latin is more full than it can possibly be expressed in any modern language; for there it comprehends not only devotion to the gods, but filial love, and tender affection to relations of all sorts. As instances of this, the deities of Troy, and his own Penates, are made the companions of his flight: they appear to him in his voyage, and advise him; and at last he replaces them in Italy, their native country. For his father, he takes him on his back: he leads his little son: his wife follows him; but, losing his footsteps through fear or ignorance, he goes back into the midst of his enemies to find her, and leaves not his pursuit until her ghost appears, to forbid his farther search. I will say nothing of his duty to his father while he lived, his sorrow for his death, of the games instituted in honour of his memory, or seeking him, by his command, even after his death, in the Elysian fields. I will not mention his tenderness for his son, which everywhere is visible—of his raising a tomb for Polydorus, the obsequies for Misenus, his pious remembrance of Deïphobus, the funerals of his nurse, his grief for Pallas, and his revenge taken on his murderer, whom otherwise, by his natural compassion, he had forgiven: and then the poem had been left imperfect; for we could have had no certain prospect of his happiness, while the last obstacle to it was unremoved. Of the other parts which compose his character, as a king, or as a general, I need say nothing; the whole Æneïs is one continued instance of some one or other of them; and where I find any thing of them taxed, it shall suffice me, as briefly as I can, to vindicate my divine master to your lordship, and by you to the reader. But hereinSégrais, in his admirable preface to his translation of the Æneïs, as the author of the Dauphin's Virgil justly calls it, has prevented me. Him I follow, and what I borrow from him, am ready to acknowledge to him. For, impartially speaking, the French are as much better critics than the English, as they are worse poets. Thus we generally allow, that they better understand the management of a war than our islanders; but we know we are superior to them in the day of battle. They value themselves on their generals, we on our soldiers. But this is not the proper place to decide that question, if they make it one. I shall perhaps say as much of other nations, and their poets, excepting only Tasso; and hope to make my assertion good, which is but doing justice to my country; part of which honour will reflect on your lordship, whose thoughts are always just; your numbers harmonious, your words chosen, your expressions strong and manly, your verse flowing, and your turns as happy as they are easy. If you would set us more copies, your example would make all precepts needless. In the mean time, that little you have written is owned, and that particularly by the poets, (who are a nation not over lavish of praise to their contemporaries,) as a principal ornament of our language; but the sweetest essences are always confined in the smallest glasses.

When I speak of your lordship, it is never a digression, and therefore I need beg no pardon for it; but take up Ségrais where I left him, and shall use him less often than I have occasion for him; for his preface is a perfect piece of criticism, full and clear, and digested into an exact method; mine is loose, and, as I intended it, epistolary. Yet I dwell on many things, which he durst not touch; for itis dangerous to offend an arbitrary master; and every patron, who has the power of Augustus, has not his clemency. In short, my lord, I would not translate him, because I would bring you somewhat of my own. His notes and observations on every book are of the same excellency; and, for the same reason, I omit the greater part.

He takes notice that Virgil is arraigned for placing piety before valour, and making that piety the chief character of his hero. I have said already from Bossu, that a poet is not obliged to make his hero a virtuous man; therefore, neither Homer nor Tasso are to be blamed, for giving what predominant quality they pleased to their first character. But Virgil, who designed to form a perfect prince, and would insinuate that Augustus, whom he calls Æneas in his poem, was truly such, found himself obliged to make him without blemish, thoroughly virtuous; and a thorough virtue both begins and ends in piety. Tasso, without question, observed this before me, and therefore split his hero in two: he gave Godfrey piety, and Rinaldo fortitude, for their chief qualities or manners. Homer, who had chosen another moral, makes both Agamemnon and Achilles vicious; for his design was to instruct in virtue, by shewing the deformity of vice. I avoid repetition of what I have said above. What follows, is translated literally from Ségrais.

"Virgil had considered, that the greatest virtues of Augustus consisted in the perfect art of governing his people; which caused him to reign for more than forty years in great felicity. He considered, that his emperor was valiant, civil, popular, eloquent, politic, and religious; he has given all these qualities to Æneas. But, knowing that piety alone comprehends the whole duty of man towards the gods,towards his country, and towards his relations, he judged, that this ought to be his first character, whom he would set for a pattern of perfection. In reality, they who believe, that the praises which arise from valour are superior to those which proceed from any other virtues, have not considered, (as they ought,) that valour, destitute of other virtues, cannot render a man worthy of any true esteem. That quality, which signifies no more than an intrepid courage, may be separated from many others which are good, and accompanied with many which are ill. A man may be very valiant, and yet impious and vicious. But the same cannot be said of piety, which excludes all ill qualities, and comprehends even valour itself, with all other qualities which are good. Can we, for example, give the praise of valour to a man, who should see his gods prophaned, and should want the courage to defend them? to a man, who should abandon his father, or desert his king, in his last necessity?"

Thus far Ségrais, in giving the preference to piety before valour. I will now follow him, where he considers this valour, or intrepid courage, singly in itself; and this also Virgil gives to his Æneas, and that in a heroical degree.

Having first concluded, that our poet did for the best in taking the first character of his hero from that essential virtue on which the rest depend, he proceeds to tell us, that, in the ten years' war of Troy, he was considered as the second champion of his country, (allowing Hector the first place;) and this, even by the confession of Homer, who took all occasions of setting up his own countrymen the Grecians, and of undervaluing the Trojan chiefs. But Virgil (whom Ségrais forgot to cite) makes Diomede give him a higher character for strengthand courage. His testimony is this, in the Eleventh Book:

————————Stetimus tela aspera contra,Contulimusque manus: experto credite, quantusIn clypeum assurgat, quo turbine torqueat hastam.Si duo præterea tales Idæa tulissetTerra viros, ultro Inachias venisset ad urbesDardanus, et versis lugeret Græcia fatis.Quidquid apud duræ cessatum est mœnia Trojæ,Hectoris Æneæque manu victoria Graiucirc;mHæsit, et in decumum vestigia retulit annum.Ambo animis, ambo insignes præstantibus armis:Hic pietate prior.———

I give not here my translation of these verses, (though I think I have not ill succeeded in them,) because your lordship is so great a master of the original, that I have no reason to desire you should see Virgil and me so near together; but you may please, my lord, to take notice, that the Latin author refines upon the Greek, and insinuates, that Homer had done his hero wrong, in giving the advantage of the duel to his own countryman; though Diomede was manifestly the second champion of the Grecians; and Ulysses preferred him before Ajax, when he chose him for the companion of his nightly expedition; for he had a headpiece of his own, and wanted only the fortitude of another, to bring him off with safety, and that he might compass his design with honour.

The French translator thus proceeds: "They, who accuse Æneas for want of courage, either understand not Virgil, or have read him slightly; otherwise they would not raise an objection so easy to be answered." Hereupon he gives so many instances of the hero's valour, that to repeat them after him would tire your lordship, and put me to the unnecessary trouble of transcribing the greatest part of the three last Æneids. In short, more could notbe expected from an Amadis, a Sir Lancelot, or the whole Round Table, than he performs.Proxima quæque metit gladio, is the perfect account of a knight-errant. "If it be replied," continues Ségrais, "that it was not difficult for him to undertake and achieve such hardy enterprises, because he wore enchanted arms; that accusation, in the first place, must fall on Homer, ere it can reach Virgil." Achilles was as well provided with them as Æneas, though he was invulnerable without them.[50]And Ariosto, the two Tassos, (Bernardo and Torquato,) even our own Spenser—in a word, all modern poets—have copied Homer as well as Virgil: he is neither the first nor last, but in the midst of them; and therefore is safe, if they are so. "Who knows," says Ségrais, "but that his fated armour was only an allegorical defence, and signified no more than that he was under the peculiar protection of the gods? born, as the astrologers will tell us out of Virgil, (who was well versed in the Chaldean mysteries,) under the favourable influence of Jupiter, Venus, and the Sun." But I insist not on this, because I know you believe not there is such an art; though not only Horace and Persius, but Augustus himself, thought otherwise. But, in defence of Virgil, I dare positively say, that he has been more cautious in this particular than either his predecessor, or his descendants: for Æneas was actually wounded, in the Twelfth of the Æneis; though he had the same godsmith[51]to forge his arms as hadAchilles. It seems he was nowarluck,[52]as the Scots commonly call such men, who, they say, are iron-free, or lead-free. Yet, after this experiment, that his arms were not impenetrable—when he was cured indeed by his mother's help, because he was that day to conclude the war by the death of Turnus—the poet durst not carry the miracle too far, and restore him wholly to his former vigour: he was still too weak to overtake his enemy; yet we see with what courage he attacks Turnus, when he faces and renews the combat. I need say no more; for Virgil defends himself without needing my assistance, and proves his hero truly to deserve that name. He was not then a second-rate champion, as they would have him, who think fortitude the first virtue in a hero. But, being beaten from this hold, they will not yet allow him to be valiant, because he wept more often, as they think, than well becomes a man of courage.

In the first place, if tears are arguments of cowardice, what shall I say of Homer's hero? Shall Achilles pass for timorous, because he wept, and wept on less occasions than Æneas? Herein Virgil must be granted to have excelled his master.For once both heroes are described lamenting their lost loves: Briseïs was taken away by force from the Grecians; Creüsa was lost for ever to her husband. But Achilles went roaring along the salt sea-shore, and, like a booby, was complaining to his mother, when he should have revenged his injury by arms. Æneas took a nobler course; for, having secured his father and his son, he repeated all his former dangers, to have found his wife, if she had been above ground. And here your lordship may observe the address of Virgil; it was not for nothing that this passage was related with all these tender circumstances. Æneas told it; Dido heard it. That he had been so affectionate a husband, was no ill argument to the coming dowager, that he might prove as kind to her. Virgil has a thousand secret beauties, though I have not leisure to remark them.

Ségrais, on this subject of a hero shedding tears, observes, that historians commend Alexander for weeping when he read the mighty actions of Achilles; and Julius Cæsar is likewise praised, when, out of the same noble envy, he wept at the victories of Alexander. But, if we observe more closely, we shall find, that the tears of Æneas were always on a laudable occasion. Thus he weeps out of compassion and tenderness of nature, when, in the temple of Carthage, he beholds the pictures of his friends, who sacrificed their lives in defence of their country. He deplores the lamentable end of his pilot Palinurus, the untimely death of young Pallas his confederate, and the rest, which I omit. Yet, even for these tears, his wretched critics dare condemn him. They make Æneas little betterthan a kind of St Swithin[53]hero, always raining. One of these censors is bold enough to argue him of cowardice, when, in the beginning of the first book, he not only weeps, but trembles, at an approaching storm—

Extemplo Æneæ solvuntur frigore membra:Ingemit; et duplices tendens ad sidera palmas, &c.

But to this I have answered formerly, that his fear was not for himself, but for his people. And what can give a sovereign a better commendation, or recommend a hero more to the affection of the reader? They were threatened with a tempest, and he wept; he was promised Italy, and therefore he prayed for the accomplishment of that promise:—all this in the beginning of a storm; therefore he shewed the more early piety, and the quicker sense of compassion. Thus much I have urged elsewhere in the defence of Virgil; and, since, I have been informed by Mr Moyle,[54]a young gentleman whom I can never sufficiently commend, that the ancients accounted drowning an accursed death; so that, if we grant him to have been afraid, he had just occasion for that fear, both in relation to himself and to his subjects. I think our adversaries can carry this argument no farther, unless they tell us, that he ought to have had more

confidence in the promise of the gods; but how was he assured, that he had understood their oracles aright? Helenus might be mistaken; Phœbus might speak doubtfully; even his mother might flatter him, that he might prosecute his voyage, which if it succeeded happily, he should be the founder of an empire; for, that she herself was doubtful of his fortune, is apparent by the address she made to Jupiter on his behalf; to which the god makes answer in these words:

Parce metû, Cytherea: manent immota tuorumFata tibi, &c.

notwithstanding which, the goddess, though comforted, was not assured; for, even after this, through the course of the whole Æneïs, she still apprehends the interest which Juno might make with Jupiter against her son. For it was a moot point in heaven, whether he could alter fate, or not. And indeed some passages in Virgil would make us suspect, that he was of opinion Jupiter might defer fate, though he could not alter it; for, in the latter end of the tenth book, he introduces Juno begging for the life of Turnus, and flattering her husband with the power of changing destiny—Tua, qui potes, orsa reflectas!To which he graciously answers:

Si mora præsentis leti, tempusque caducoOratur juveni, meque hoc ita ponere sentis,Tolle fugâ Turnum, atque instantibus eripe fatis.Hactenus indulsisse vacat. Sin altior istisSub precibus venia ulla latet, totumque moveriMutarive putas bellum, spes pascis inanes.

But, that he could not alter those decrees, the king of gods himself confesses, in the book above cited, when he comforts Hercules for the deathof Pallas, who had invoked his aid, before he threw his lance at Turnus—

———Trojæ sub mænibus altis,Tot nati cecidere deûm; quin occidit unâSarpedon, mea progenies. Etiam sua TurnumFata manent, metasque dati pervenit ad ævi—

where he plainly acknowledges, that he could not save his own son, or prevent the death which he foresaw. Of his power to defer the blow, I once occasionally discoursed with that excellent person Sir Robert Howard,[55]who is better conversant, than any man that I know, in the doctrine of the Stoics; and he set me right, from the concurrent testimony of philosophers and poets, that Jupiter could not retard the effects of fate, even for a moment. For, when I cited Virgil, as favouring the contrary opinion in that verse,

Tolle fugâ Turnum, atque instantibus eripe fatis——

he replied, and, I think, with exact judgment, that, when Jupiter gave Juno leave to withdraw Turnus from the present danger, it was because he certainly foreknew that his fatal hour was not come; that it was in destiny for Juno at that time to save him; and that himself obeyed destiny, in giving her that leave.

I need say no more in justification of our hero's courage, and am much deceived, if he everbe attacked on this side of his character again. But he is arraigned with more shew of reason by the ladies, who will make a numerous party against him, for being false to love, in forsaking Dido. And I cannot much blame them; for, to say the truth, it is an ill precedent for their gallants to follow. Yet, if I can bring him off with flying colours, they may learn experience at her cost, and, for her sake, avoid a cave, as the worst shelter they can chuse from a shower of rain, especially when they have a lover in their company.

In the first place, Ségrais observes with much acuteness, that they who blame Æneas for his insensibility of love when he left Carthage, contradict their former accusation of him, for being always crying, compassionate, and effeminately sensible of those misfortunes which befel others. They give him two contrary characters; but Virgil makes him of a piece, always grateful, always tender-hearted. But they are impudent enough to discharge themselves of this blunder, by laying the contradiction at Virgil's door. He, say they, has shewn his hero with these inconsistent characters, acknowledging and ungrateful, compassionate and hard-hearted, but, at the bottom, fickle and self-interested; for Dido had not only received his weather-beaten troops before she saw him, and given them her protection, but had also offered them an equal share in her dominion—

Vultis et his mecum pariter considere regnis?Urbem quam statuo, vestra est.

This was an obligement never to be forgotten; and the more to be considered, because antecedent to her love. That passion, it is true, producedthe usual effects, of generosity, gallantry, and care to please; and thither we refer them. But, when she had made all these advances, it was still in his power to have refused them; after the intrigue of the cave, (call it marriage, or enjoyment only,) he was no longer free to take or leave; he had accepted the favour, and was obliged to be constant, if he would be grateful.

My lord, I have set this argument in the best light I can, that the ladies may not think I write booty; and perhaps it may happen to me, as it did to Doctor Cudworth,[56]who has raised such strong objections against the being of a God, and Providence, that many think he has not answered them. You may please at least to hear the adverse party. Ségrais pleads for Virgil, that no less than an absolute command from Jupiter could excuse this insensibility of the hero, and this abrupt departure, which looks so like extreme ingratitude. But, at the same time, he does wisely to remember you, that Virgil had made piety the first character of Æneas; and, this being allowed, (as I am afraid it must,) he was obliged, antecedent to all other considerations, to search an asylum for his gods in Italy—for those very gods, I say, who had promised to his race the universal empire. Could a pious man dispense with the commands of Jupiter, to satisfy his passion, or (take it in the strongest sense) to comply with the obligations of his gratitude? Religion, it is true, must have moral honesty for its ground-work, or we shall be apt to suspect its truth; but an immediate revelation dispenses with all duties of morality. All casuistsagree, that theft is a breach of the moral law; yet, if I might presume to mingle things sacred with prophane, the Israelites only spoiled the Egyptians, not robbed them, because the propriety was transferred by a revelation to their law-giver. I confess, Dido was a very infidel in this point; for she would not believe, as Virgil makes her say, that ever Jupiter would send Mercury on such an immoral errand. But this needs no answer, at least no more than Virgil gives it—

Fata obstant; placidasque viri Deus obstruit aures.

This notwithstanding, as Ségrais confesses, he might have shewn a little more sensibility when he left her; for that had been according to his character.

But let Virgil answer for himself. He still loved her, and struggled with his inclinations, to obey the gods:

——Curam sub corde premebat,Multa gemens, magnoque animum labefactus amore.

Upon the whole matter, and humanly speaking, I doubt there was a fault somewhere: and Jupiter is better able to bear the blame, than either Virgil or Æneas. The poet, it seems, had found it out, and therefore brings the deserting hero and the forsaken lady to meet together in the lower regions, where he excuses himself when it is too late; and accordingly she will take no satisfaction, nor so much as hear him. Now Ségrais is forced to abandon his defence, and excuses his author, by saying, that the Æneïs is an imperfect work, and that death prevented the divine poet from reviewing it; andfor that reason he had condemned it to the fire;[57]though, at the same time, his two translators must acknowledge, that the Sixth Book is the most correct of the whole Æneïs. Oh! how convenient is a machine sometimes in a heroic poem! This of Mercury is plainly one; and Virgil was constrained to use it here, or the honesty of his hero would be ill-defended. And the fair sex, however, if they had the deserter in their power, would certainly have shewn him no more mercy than the Bacchanals did Orpheus: for, if too much constancy may be a fault sometimes, then want of constancy, and ingratitude after the last favour, is a crime that never will be forgiven. But, of machines, more in their proper place; where I shall shew, with how much judgment they have been used by Virgil; and, in the mean time, pass to another article of his defence, on the present subject; where, if I cannot clear the hero, I hope at least to bring off the poet; for here I must divide their causes. Let Æneas trust to his machine, which will only help to break his fall; but the address is incomparable. Plato, who borrowed so much from Homer, and yet concluded for the banishment of all poets, would at least have rewarded Virgil, before he sent him into exile. But I go farther, and say, that he ought to be acquitted, and deserved, beside, the bounty of Augustus, and the gratitude of the Roman people. If, after this, the ladies will stand out, let them remember, that the jury is not all agreed; for Octaviawas of his party, and was of the first quality in Rome; she was also present at the reading of the Sixth Æneïd: and we know not that she condemned Æneas; but we are sure she presented the poet, for his admirable elegy on her son Marcellus.

But let us consider the secret reasons which Virgil had, for thus framing this noble episode, wherein the whole passion of love is more exactly described than in any other poet. Love was the theme of his Fourth Book; and, though it is the shortest of the whole Æneïs, yet there he has given its beginning, its progress, its traverses, and its conclusion; and had exhausted so entirely this subject, that he could resume it but very slightly in the eight ensuing books.

She was warmed with the graceful appearance of the hero; she smothered those sparkles out of decency; but conversation blew them up into a flame. Then she was forced to make a confident of her whom she best might trust, her own sister, who approves the passion, and thereby augments it; then succeeds her public owning it; and, after that, the consummation. Of Venus and Juno, Jupiter and Mercury, I say nothing; for they were all machining work; but, possession having cooled his love, as it increased hers, she soon perceived the change, or at least grew suspicious of a change; this suspicion soon turned to jealousy, and jealousy to rage; then she disdains and threatens, and again is humble, and entreats, and, nothing availing, despairs, curses, and at last becomes her own executioner. See here the whole process of that passion, to which nothing can be added. I dare go no farther, lest I should lose the connection of my discourse.[58]

To love our native country, and to study its benefit and its glory, to be interested in its concerns, is natural to all men, and is indeed our common duty. A poet makes a farther step; for, endeavouring to do honour to it, it is allowable in him even to be partial in its cause; for he is not tied to truth, or fettered by the laws of history. Homer and Tasso are justly praised for chusing their heroes out of Greece and Italy; Virgil indeed made his a Trojan; but it was to derive the Romans and his own Augustus from him. But all the three poets are manifestly partial to their heroes, in favour of their country; for Dares Phrygius reports of Hector, that he was slain cowardly: Æneas, according to the best account, slew not Mezentius, but was slain by him; and the chronicles of Italy tell us little of that Rinaldo d'Este, who conquers Jerusalem in Tasso. He might be a champion of the church; but we know not that he was so much as present at the siege. To apply this to Virgil, he thought himself engaged in honour to espouse the cause and quarrel of his country against Carthage. He knew he could not please the Romans better, or oblige them more to patronize his poem, than by disgracing the foundress of that city. He shews her ungrateful to the memory of her first husband, doting on a stranger; enjoyed, and afterwards forsaken, by him. This was the original, says he, of the immortal hatred betwixt the two rival nations. It is true, he colours the falsehood of Æneas by an express command from Jupiter, to forsake the queen, who had obliged him; but he knew the Romans were to be his readers; and them he bribed, perhaps at the expence of his hero's honesty; but he gained his cause, however, as pleading before corrupt judges. They were content to see their founder false to love; for still he had the advantageof the amour; it was their enemy whom he forsook; and she might have forsaken him, if he had not got the start of her; she had already forgotten her vows to her Sichæus; andvarium et mutabile semper femina, is the sharpest satire, in the fewest words, that ever was made on woman-kind; for both the adjectives are neuter, andanimalmust be understood, to make them grammar. Virgil does well to put those words into the mouth of Mercury. If a god had not spoken them, neither durst he have written them, nor I translated them. Yet the deity was forced to come twice on the same errand; and the second time, as much a hero as Æneas was, he frighted him. It seems he feared not Jupiter so much as Dido; for your lordship may observe, that, as much intent as he was upon his voyage, yet he still delayed it, till the messenger was obliged to tell him plainly, that, if he weighed not anchor in the night, the queen would be with him in the morning—notumque, furens quid femina possit—she was injured; she was revengeful; she was powerful. The poet had likewise before hinted, that the people were naturally perfidious; for he gives their character in the queen, and makes a proverb ofPunica fides, many ages before it was invented.

Thus, I hope, my lord, that I have made good my promise, and justified the poet, whatever becomes of the false knight. And sure a poet is as much privileged to lie as an ambassador, for the honour and interest of his country; at least as Sir Henry Wotton has defined.[59]

This naturally leads me to the defence of the famous anachronism, in making Æneas and Dido contemporaries; for it is certain, that the hero lived almost two hundred years before the building of Carthage. One who imitates Boccalini, says, that Virgil was accused before Apollo for this error. The god soon found, that he was not able to defend his favourite by reason; for the case was clear: he therefore gave this middle sentence, that any thing might be allowed to his son Virgil, on the account of his other merits; that, being a monarch, he had a dispensing power, and pardoned him. But, that this special act of grace might never be drawn into example, or pleaded by his puny successors in justification of their ignorance, he decreed for the future, no poet should presume to make a lady die for love two hundred years before her birth. To moralize this story, Virgil is the Apollo who has this dispensing power. His great judgment made the laws of poetry; but he never made himself a slave to them; chronology, at best, is but a cobweb-law, and he broke through it with his weight. They who will imitate him wisely, must chuse, as he did, an obscure and a remote æra, where they may invent at pleasure, and not be easily contradicted. Neitherhe, nor the Romans, had ever read the Bible, by which only his false computation of times can be made out against him. This Ségrais says in his defence, and proves it from his learned friend Bochartus, whose letter on this subject he has printed at the end of the fourth Æneïd, to which I refer your lordship and the reader. Yet the credit of Virgil was so great, that he made this fable of his own invention pass for an authentic history, or at least as credible as any thing in Homer. Ovid takes it up after him, even in the same age, and makes an ancient heroine of Virgil's new-created Dido; dictates a letter for her, just before her death, to the ungrateful fugitive; and, very unluckily for himself, is for measuring a sword with a man so much superior in force to him, on the same subject. I think I may be judge of this, because I have translated both.[60]The famous author of the "Art of Love" has nothing of his own; he borrows all from a greater master in his own profession; and, which is worse, improves nothing which he finds. Nature fails him; and, being forced to his old shift, he has recourse to witticism. This passes indeed with his soft admirers, and gives him the preference to Virgil in their esteem. But let them like for themselves, and not prescribe to others; for our author needs not their admiration.

The motives that induced Virgil to coin this fable, I have shewed already; and have also begun to shew, that he might make this anachronism, by superseding the mechanic rules of poetry, for the same reason that a monarch may dispense with or suspend his own laws, when he finds it necessaryso to do, especially if those laws are not altogether fundamental. Nothing is to be called a fault in poetry, says Aristotle, but what is against the art; therefore a man may be an admirable poet, without being an exact chronologer. Shall we dare, continues Ségrais, to condemn Virgil for having made a fiction against the order of time, when we commend Ovid and other poets, who have made many of their fictions against the order of nature? For what else are the splendid miracles of the Metamorphoses? Yet these are beautiful as they are related, and have also deep learning and instructive mythologies couched under them: but to give, as Virgil does in this episode, the original cause of the long wars betwixt Rome and Carthage, to draw truth out of fiction after so probable a manner, with so much beauty, and so much for the honour of his country, was proper only to the divine wit of Maro; and Tasso, in one of his discourses, admires him for this particularly. It is not lawful, indeed, to contradict a point of history which is known to all the world, as, for example, to make Hannibal and Scipio contemporaries with Alexander; but, in the dark recesses of antiquity, a great poet may and ought to feign such things as he finds not there, if they can be brought to embellish that subject which he treats. On the other side, the pains and diligence of ill poets is but thrown away, when they want the genius to invent and feign agreeably. But, if the fictions be delightful, (which they always are, if they be natural,) if they be of a piece; if the beginning, the middle, and the end, be in their due places, and artfully united to each other, such works can never fail of their deserved success. And such is Virgil's episode of Dido and Æneas; where the sourest critic must acknowledge, that, if he had deprived his Æneïs of so great an ornamentbecause he found no traces of it in antiquity, he had avoided their unjust censure, but had wanted one of the greatest beauties of his poem. I shall say more of this in the next article of their charge against him, which is want of invention. In the mean time, I may affirm, in honour of this episode, that it is not only now esteemed the most pleasing entertainment of the Æneïs, but was so accounted in his own age, and before it was mellowed into that reputation which time has given it; for which I need produce no other testimony, than that of Ovid, his contemporary—

Nec pars ulla magis legitur de corpore toto,Quam non legitimo fœdere junctus amor—

where, by the way, you may observe, my lord, that Ovid, in those words,Non legitimo fœdere junctus amor, will by no means allow it to be a lawful marriage betwixt Dido and Æneas. He was in banishment when he wrote those verses, which I cite from his letter to Augustus: "You, Sir," saith he, "have sent me into exile for writing my 'Art of Love,' and my wanton Elegies; yet your own poet was happy in your good graces, though he brought Dido and Æneas into a cave, and left them there not over-honestly together. May I be so bold to ask your majesty, is it a greater fault to teach the art of unlawful love, than to shew it in the action?" But was Ovid, the court-poet, so bad a courtier, as to find no other plea to excuse himself, than by a plain accusation of his master? Virgil confessed it was a lawful marriage betwixt the lovers, that Juno the goddess of matrimony had ratified it by her presence; for it was her business to bring matters to that issue. That the ceremonies were short, we may believe; for Dido was not onlyamorous, but a widow. Mercury himself, though employed on a quite contrary errand, yet owns it a marriage by an inuendo—pulchramque uxorius urbem exstruis. He calls Æneas not only a husband, but upbraids him for being a fond husband, as the worduxoriusimplies. Now mark a little, if your lordship pleases, why Virgil is so much concerned to make this marriage (for he seems to be the father of the bride himself, and to give her to the bridegroom); It was to make way for the divorce which he intended afterwards; for he was a finer flatterer than Ovid; and I more than conjecture, that he had in his eye the divorce which not long before had passed betwixt the emperor and Scribonia.[61]He drew this dimple in the cheek of Æneas, to prove Augustus of the same family, by so remarkable a feature in the same place. Thus, as we say in our home-spun English proverb, he killed two birds with one stone; pleased the emperor, by giving him the resemblance of his ancestor, and gave him such a resemblance as was not scandalous in that age. For, to leave one wife, and take another, was but a matter of gallantry at that time of day among the Romans.Neque hæc in fœdera veni, is the very excuse which Æneas makes, when he leaves his lady: "I made no such bargain with you at our marriage, to live always drudging on at Carthage: my business was Italy; and I never made a secret of it. If I took my pleasure, had not you your share of it? I leave you free, at my departure, to comfort yourself with the next strangerwho happens to be shipwrecked on your coast. Be as kind a hostess as you have been to me; and you can never fail of another husband. In the mean time, I call the gods to witness, that I leave your shore unwillingly; for, though Juno made the marriage, yet Jupiter commands me to forsake you." This is the effect of what he saith, when it is dishonoured out of Latin verse, into English prose. If the poet argued not aright, we must pardon him for a poor blind heathen, who knew no better morals.

I have detained your lordship longer than I intended, on this objection, which would indeed weigh something in a spiritual court; but I am not to defend our poet there. The next, I think, is but a cavil, though the cry is great against him, and hath continued from the time of Macrobius to this present age. I hinted it before. They lay no less than want of invention to his charge—a capital crime, I must acknowledge; for a poet is a maker,[62]as the word signifies; and he, who cannot make, that is, invent, hath his name for nothing. That which makes this accusation look so strange[63]at the first sight, is, that he has borrowed so many things from Homer, Apollonius Rhodius, and others who preceded him. But, in the first place, if invention is to be taken in so strict a sense, that the matter of a poem must be wholly new, and that in all its parts, then Scaliger hath made out, saith Ségrais, that the history of Troy was no more theinvention of Homer, than of Virgil. There was not an old woman, or almost a child, but had it in their mouths, before the Greek poet or his friends digested it into this admirable order in which we read it. At this rate, as Solomon hath told us, there is nothing new beneath the sun. Who then can pass for an inventor, if Homer, as well as Virgil, must be deprived of that glory? Is Versailles the less a new building, because the architect of that palace hath imitated others which were built before it? Walls, doors, and windows, apartments, offices, rooms of convenience and magnificence, are in all great houses. So descriptions, figures, fables, and the rest, must be in all heroic poems; they are the common materials of poetry, furnished from the magazine of nature; every poet hath as much right to them, as every man hath to air or water.

Quid prohibetis aquas? Usus communis aquarum est.

But the argument of the work, that is to say, its principal action, the œconomy and disposition of it; these are the things which distinguish copies from originals. The poet, who borrows nothing from others, is yet to be born; he and the Jews' Messias will come together. There are parts of the Æneïs, which resemble some parts both of the Ilias and of the Odysses; as, for example, Æneas descended into hell, and Ulysses had been there before him; Æneas loved Dido, and Ulysses loved Calypso; in few words, Virgil hath imitated Homer's Odysses in his first six books, and, in his six last, the Ilias. But from hence can we infer, that the two poets write the same history? Is there no invention in some other parts of Virgil's Æneïs? The disposition of so many various matters, is not that his own?From what book of Homer had Virgil his episode of Nisus and Euryalus, of Mezentius and Lausus? From whence did he borrow his design of bringing Æneas into Italy? of establishing the Roman empire on the foundations of a Trojan colony? to say nothing of the honour he did his patron, not only in his descent from Venus, but in making him so like her in his best features, that the goddess might have mistaken Augustus for her son. He had indeed the story from common fame, as Homer had his from the Egyptian priestess.Æneadûm genetrixwas no more unknown to Lucretius, than to him. But Lucretius taught him not to form his hero, to give him piety or valour for his manners, and both in so eminent a degree, that, having done what was possible for man to save his king and country, his mother was forced to appear to him, and restrain his fury, which hurried him to death in their revenge. But the poet made his piety more successful; he brought off his father and his son; and his gods witnessed to his devotion, by putting themselves under his protection, to be replaced by him in their promised Italy. Neither the invention nor the conduct of this great action were owing to Homer, or any other poet. It is one thing to copy, and another thing to imitate from nature. The copier is that servile imitator, to whom Horace gives no better a name than that of animal; he will not so much as allow him to be a man. Raphael imitated nature; they who copy one of Raphael's pieces, imitate but him; for his work is their original. They translate him, as I do Virgil; and fall as short of him, as I of Virgil. There is a kind of invention in the imitation of Raphael; for, though the thing was in nature, yet the idea of it was his own. Ulysses travelled; so did Æneas: but neither of them were the first travellers; for Cain wentinto the land of Nod before they were born: and neither of the poets ever heard of such a man. If Ulysses had been killed at Troy, yet Æneas must have gone to sea, or he could never have arrived in Italy. But the designs of the two poets were as different as the courses of their heroes; one went home, and the other sought a home. To return to my first similitude: suppose Apelles and Raphael had each of them painted a burning Troy, might not the modern painter have succeeded as well as the ancient, though neither of them had seen the town on fire? for the draughts of both were taken from the ideas which they had of nature. Cities had been burnt, before either of them were in being. But, to close the simile as I began it; they would not have designed it after the same manner: Apelles would have distinguished Pyrrhus from the rest of all the Grecians, and shewed him forcing his entrance into Priam's palace; there he had set him in the fairest light, and given him the chief place of all his figures; because he was a Grecian, and he would do honour to his country. Raphael, who was an Italian, and descended from the Trojans, would have made Æneas the hero of his piece; and perhaps not with his father on his back, his son in one hand, his bundle of gods in the other, and his wife following; for an act of piety is not half so graceful in a picture, as an act of courage: he would rather have drawn him killing Androgeos, or some other, hand to hand; and the blaze of the fires should have darted full upon his face, to make him conspicuous amongst his Trojans. This, I think, is a just comparison betwixt the two poets, in the conduct of their several designs. Virgil cannot be said to copy Homer; the Grecian had only the advantage of writing first. If it be urged, that I have granted a resemblance in some parts, yet thereinVirgil has excelled him. For, what are the tears of Calypso for being left, to the fury and death of Dido? Where is there the whole process of her passion, and all its violent effects to be found, in the languishing episode of the Odysses? If this be to copy, let the critics shew us the same dispositions, features, or colouring, in their original. The like may be said of the descent to hell, which was not of Homer's invention neither; he had it from the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. But to what end did Ulysses make that journey? Æneas undertook it by the express commandment of his father's ghost; there he was to show him all the succeeding heroes of his race, and, next to Romulus, (mark, if you please, the address of Virgil,) his own patron, Augustus Cæsar. Anchises was likewise to instruct him, how to manage the Italian war, and how to conclude it with his honour; that is, in other words, to lay the foundations of that empire which Augustus was to govern. This is the noble invention of our author; but it hath been copied by so many sign-post daubers, that now it is grown fulsome, rather by their want of skill, than by the commonness.

In the last place, I may safely grant, that, by reading Homer, Virgil was taught to imitate his invention—that is, to imitate like him; which is no more than if a painter studied Raphael, that he might learn to design after his manner. And thus I might imitate Virgil, if I were capable of writing a heroic poem, and yet the invention be my own: but I should endeavour to avoid a servile copying. I would not give the same story under other names, with the same characters, in the same order, and with the same sequel; for every common reader to find me out at the first sight for a plagiary, andcry,—This I read before in Virgil, in a better language, and in better verse. This is like Merry Andrew on the low rope, copying lubberly the same tricks which his master is so dexterously performing on the high.

I will trouble your lordship but with one objection more, which I know not whether I found in Le Fèvre, or Valais; but I am sure I have read it in another French critic, whom I will not name, because I think it is not much for his reputation.[64]Virgil, in the heat of action—suppose, for example, in describing the fury of his hero in a battle, when he is endeavouring to raise our concernments to the highest pitch—turns short on the sudden into some similitude, which diverts, say they, your attention from the main subject, and mis spends it on some trivial image. He pours cold water into the cauldron, when his business is to make it boil.[65]

This accusation is general against all who would be thought heroic poets; but I think it touches Virgil less than any. He is too great a master of his art, to make a blot which may so easily be hit. Similitudes, as I have said, are not for tragedy, which is all violent, and where the passions are in a perpetual ferment; for there they deaden where they should animate; they are not of the nature of dialogue, unless in comedy: a metaphor is almost all the stage can suffer, which is a kind of similitude comprehended in a word. But this figurehas a contrary effect in heroic poetry; there it is employed to raise the admiration, which is its proper business; and admiration is not of so violent a nature as fear or hope, compassion or horror, or any concernment we can have for such or such a person on the stage. Not but I confess, that similitudes and descriptions, when drawn into an unreasonable length, must needs nauseate the reader. Once, I remember, and but once, Virgil makes a similitude of fourteen lines; and his description of Fame is about the same number. He is blamed for both; and I doubt not but he would have contracted them, had he lived to have reviewed his work; but faults are no precedents. This I have observed of his similitudes in general, that they are not placed, as our unobserving critics tell us, in the heat of any action, but commonly in its declining. When he has warmed us in his description as much as possibly he can, then, lest that warmth should languish, he renews it by some apt similitude, which illustrates his subject, and yet palls not his audience. I need give your lordship but one example of this kind, and leave the rest to your observation, when next you review the whole Æneïs in the original, unblemished by my rude translation. It is in the first book, where the poet describes Neptune composing the ocean, on which Æolus had raised a tempest without his permission. He had already chidden the rebellious winds for obeying the commands of their usurping master; he had warned them from the seas; he had beaten down the billows with his mace, dispelled the clouds, restored the sunshine, while Triton and Cymothoë were heaving the ships from off the quick-sands, before the poet would offer at a similitude for illustration:

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