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 Caesar, 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 a 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 council-hall--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. AEneas, though he married the heiress of the crown, yet claimed no title to it during the life of his father-in-law. Socer arma Latinus hebeto, &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 Pantheus, in the second book of the "AEneis," 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 AEneas, that title is already out of doors. AEneas succeeded not, but was elected. Troy was fore-doomed to fall for ever:-

"Postquam res Asiae, Priamique evertere gentem, Immeritam visum superis."--AENEIS, I. iii., line 1.

Augustus, it is true, had once resolved to rebuild that city, and there to make the seat of the 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. 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 till 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 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 Deiphobus; 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 "AEneis" is one continued instance of some one or other of them; and where I find anything 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 "AEneis," 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 say perhaps 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 meantime 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 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 it is 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 no 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 AEneas 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 showing the deformity of vice. I avoid repetition of that I have said above. What follows is translated literally from Segrais:-

"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 AEneas. 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 he 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 profaned, 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 Segrais, 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 AEneas, 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 Segrais forgot to cite) makes Diomede give him a higher character for strength and courage. His testimony is this, in the eleventh book:-

"Stetimus tela aspera contra, Contulimusque manus: experto credite, quantus In clypeum adsurgat, quo turbine torqueat hastam. Si duo praeterea tales Inachias venisset ad urbes Dardanus, et versis lugeret Graecia fatis. Quicquid apud durae cessatum est maenia Trojae, Hectoris AEneaeque manu victoria Grajum Haesit, et in decumum vestigia retulit annum. Ambo animis, ambo insignes praestantibus 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