but necessary to the present age, and likely to be such to their posterity. That it was the received

gustum traheret, ut Principi palparet. Sed, ut MARO tam dissimiles personas, fortunas, virtutes et facta ac res gestas, inter se comparare voluerit, mihi quidem, si ejus judicium et elegantiam recte teneo, parum probabile videtur. Sapientior erat poeta, et rei poeticae intelligentior, quam ut talem cogitationem in animum admitteret. Nam praeterquam quod Aeneae characterem non invenit, sed ab aliis jam traditum accepit, circumspiciendae erant a poeta virtutes Aeneae ejusmodi, quae in epico argumento vim et splendorem haberent, et factorum, quae enarranda erant, caussas idoneas suppeditarent. Quod si ille studium suum ponere voluisset maxime in hoc, et Aeneas Augusto assimularetur, quam multa et quam parum consentanea epicae narrationi, argumento, operis characteri, temporum rationi, illaturus in carmen suum fuisset !

"Eadem fere via carmen Txov conditum a poeta visum jam olim erat R. Patri le Bossu, ut Romanos partim ad amplectendum et probandum praesentem rerum statum adducere, partim Augustum ad moderationem ac clementiam adhortari, et a dominationis libidine et impotentia revocare voluerit. Sed nec huic consilio ulla ex parte respondet Aeneidis sive argumentum sive tractatio: profugus ex urbe incensa Aeneas novam sedem quaerit, armis vim illatam propulsat, et sic porro; quid tandem his inest, quod ad imperandi artes ac virtutes spectet? Fabulae tamen Virgilianae universe inesse, et in singulis carminis partibus aut locis ac versibus occurrere talia, quae principibus pro salubribus praeceptis commendari possint, nemo neget; quin potius inter utilitates, quae poetarum carminibus debentur, praecipue hoc commemorandum est. Verum non propterea dici potest ac debet, in condendo carmine et in fabula deligenda et ordinanda tale prae

opinion, that the Romans were descended from the Trojans, and Julius Cæsar from Iulus, the son of Æneas, was enough for Virgil; though perhaps he thought not so himself; or that Æneas ever was in Italy, which Bochartus manifestly proves. And Homer, where he says that Jupiter hated the house of Priam, and was resolved to transfer the kingdom to the family of Æneas, yet mentions nothing of his leading a colony into a foreign 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

ceptum propositum poetae fuisse, cujus explicandi caussa narrationem institueret. Narrare ille voluit ac debuit rem magnam et arduam et mirabilem. Quod narratio illa, et delectatio quae inde accipitur, cum utilitate ad omnes hominum ordines, inprimisque ad principum animos conjuncta est, hoc epicae narrationi per se consentaneum est; ipsa enim rei natura ita fert, ut magnorum virorum facta magna et praeclara sine summo ad hominum animos, mores ac virtutem, fructu exponi et narrari nequeant, multo magis si cum sententiarum splendore et orationis ornatu instituta sit narratio." VIRG. a C. G. Heyne. Disquisit. i. de Carm. Epico.

2 In both the editions printed in our author's life-time, (in 1697 and 1698,) as well as in all the subsequent editions, this passage stands thus: "I doubt not but it was

be so passionately concerned for the preservation of the NEIS, 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 honour,-that a work should not be lost, where his divine original was celebrated in verse, which had the character of immortality stamped upon it.

Neither were the great Roman families which flourished 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 ENEIS; but there are whole constellations of them in the Fifth Book. And I could not but take notice, when I translated it, of some favourite 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 honour 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

one reason why Augustus, was, because," &c. It was doubtless an errour of the press, which escaped our author's notice; and arose probably from his having wavered between two modes of expression, both of which he could not mean to retain.

who lost the prizes were such as had 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 humour: 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.3 Spencer favours 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.

But

Thus far, I think, my author is defended. 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

3 Brutus, the supposed founder of Britain, according to Jeffrey of Monmouth, was the great grandson of Æneas.

prepare that subject, by shewing 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 freeborn 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 con→ sideration it is, that he chose for the groundwork 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 ÆNEIS, the son of Polites, youngest son to Priam, who was slain by Pyrrhus in the

* This cant about the knavery of courtiers our author repeats usquè ad nauseam. Cowley, when he retired to the country, found there was just as much knavery among peasants, às in courts.