country, and settling there. But that the Romans valued themselves on their Trojan ancestry is so undoubted a truth, that I need not prove it. Even the seals which we have remaining of Julius Cæsar, which we know to be antique, have the star of Venus over them (though they were all graven after his death), as a note that he was deified. I doubt not but one reason, why Augustus should be so passionately concerned for the preservation of the Æneid, which its author had condemned to be burnt, as an imperfect poem, by his last will and testament, was, because it did him a real service, as well as an honor; that a work should not be lost, where his divine original was celebrated in verse which had the character of immortality stamped on it. Neither were the great Roman families which florished in his time less obliged by him than the emperor. Your lordship knows with what address he makes mention of them, as captains of ships, or leaders in the war; and even some of Italian extraction are not forgotten. These are the single stars which are sprinkled through the Æneid: but there are whole constellations of them in the fifth book. And I could not but take notice, when I translated it, of some favorite families to which he gives the victory, and awards the prizes, in the person of his hero, at the funeral games which were celebrated in honor of Anchises. I insist not on their names; but am pleased to find the Memmii amongst them, derived from Mnestheus, because Lucretius dedicates to one of that family, a branch of which destroyed Corinth. I likewise either found or formed an image to myself of the contrary kind; that those who lost the prizes were such as disobliged the poet, or were in disgrace with Augustus, or enemies to Mæcenas; and this was the poetical revenge he took: for genus irritabile vatum,' as Horace says. When a poet is thoroughly provoked he will do himself justice, however dear it cost him; animamque in vulnere ponit." I think these are not bare imaginations of my own, though I find no trace of them in the commentators: but one poet may judge of another by himself. The vengeance we defer is not forgotten. I hinted before, that the whole Roman people were obliged by Virgil, in deriving them from Troy; an ancestry which they affected. We and the French are of the same humor they would be thought to descend from a son, I think, of Hector; and we would have our Britain both named and planted by a descendant of Æneas. Spenser favors this opinion what he can. His prince Arthur, or whoever he intends by him, is a Trojan. Thus the hero of Homer was a Grecian; of Virgil, a Roman; of Tasso, an Italian. I have transgressed my bounds, and gone farther than the moral led me: but if your lordship is not tired, I am safe enough. Thus far, I think, my author is defended. But, as Augustus is still shadowed in the person of Æneas (of which I shall say more when I come to the manners which the poet gives his hero), I must prepare that subject, by showing how dexterously he managed both the prince and people, so as to displease neither, and to do good to both; which is the part of a wise and an honest man, and proves that it is possible for a courtier not to be a knave. I shall continue still to speak my thoughts like a free-born subject, as I am though such things, perhaps, as no Dutch commentator could, and I am sure no Frenchman durst. I have already told your lordship my opinion of Virgil; that he was no arbitrary man. Obliged he was to his master for his bounty; and he repays him with good counsel, how to behave himself in his new monarchy, so as to gain the affections of his subjects, and deserve to be called the father of his country. From this consideration it is, that he chose for the ground-work of his poem one empire destroyed, and another raised from the ruins of it. This was just the parallel. Æneas could not pretend to be Priam's heir in a lineal succession: for Anchises, the hero's father, was only of the second branch of the royal family; and Helenus, a son of Priam, was yet surviving, and might lawfully claim before him. It may be Virgil mentions him on that account. Neither has he forgotten Priamus, in the fifth of his Æneid, the son of Polites, youngest son of Priam, who was slain by Pyrrhus, in the second book. Eneas had only married Creusa, Priam's daughter, and by her could have no title, while any of the male issue were remaining. In this case the poet gave him the next title, which is that of an elective king. The remaining Trojans chose him to lead them forth, and settle them in some foreign country. Ilioneus, in his speech to Dido, calls him expressly by the name of king. Our poet, who all this while had Augustus in his eye, had no desire he should seem to succeed by any right of inheritance derived from Julius Cæsar (such a title being but one degree removed from conquest); for what was introduced by force, by force may be removed. It was better for the people that they should give, than he should take; since that gift was indeed no more at bottom than a trust. Virgil gives us an example of this in the person of Mezentius: he governed arbitrarily : he was expelled, and came to the deserved end of all tyrants. Our author shows us another sort of kingship in the person of Latinus: he was descended from Saturn, and, as I remember, in the third degree. He is described a just and gracious prince, solicitous for the welfare of his people, always consulting with his senate to promote the common good. We find him at the head of them, when he enters into the councilhall, speaking first, but still demanding their advice, and steering by it, as far as the iniquity of the times would suffer him. And this is the proper character of a king by inheritance, who is born a father of his country. Æneas, though he married the heiress of the crown, yet claimed no title to it during the life of his father-in-law. Pater arma Latinus habeto,' &c. are Virgil's words. As for himself, he was contented to take care of his country gods, who were not those of Latium: wherein our divine author seems to relate to the after-practice of the Romans, which was to adopt the gods of those they conquered, or received as members of their commonwealth. Yet, withal, he plainly touches at the office of the high-priesthood, with which Augustus was invested, and which made his person more sacred and inviolable than even the tribunitial power. It was not therefore for nothing that the most judicious of all poets made that office vacant by the death of-Panthus in the second book of the Æneid, for his hero to succeed in it, and consequently for Augustus to enjoy. I know not that any of the commentators have taken notice of that passage. If they have not, I am sure they ought and if they have, I am not indebted to them for the observation. The words of Virgil are very plain 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 suc ceeded not, but was elected. Troy was foredoomed to fall for ever. Postquam res Asia, Priamique evertere gentem 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. Hereon 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 honor of his memory, or seeking him, by his command, even after his death, in the Elysian fields. I will not mention his tender ness for his son, which every where is visible-of his raising a tomb for Polydorus, the obsequies for Misenus, his pious remembrance of Deïphobus, the funeral 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 Æneid 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 herein Segrais, in his admirable preface to his translation of the Eneid, 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 acknowlege 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 honor 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 Segrais where I left him, and shall use him less often than I have ocsion for him for his preface is a perfect piece of criticism, |