fuftained in their proper dignity: He is ftill the hero of the Æneid.*

The poet might, it may feem, have prefered a lefs ignominious exit to the queen of Carthage. I knew not on what principle to reconcile this, which may appear to the fober critic a blemifh in the poem. Poffibly VIRGIL may intend, by the representation of DIDO's fuicide, a facrifice to Roman invete

racy

* The Trojan had a different afylum pointed out to him by the gods. He was forbidden therefore by implication to fettle at Carthage. The direct prohibition by JUPITER himself, as to this particular kingdom, flowed evidently from the poet's indulgence to the prejudices of his country. The conftruction may be enlarged from an expreffion of MERCURY (the flying foot man to his father) to a confideration more im mediately political.

Heu regni, rerumq; oblite tuarum'

may be a diftant allufion to AUGUSTUS's defign of changing the capital of the Romans.

racy against the kingdom itself; for he might have dispatched her in a more ingenuous manner: the circumftance of JUNO's cutting the hair of the queen fhould be confidered as a compliment to the fuperftitious credulity of his time,

Quia nec fato, meritâ nec morte peribat."

However, this event, which may be juftified on more general principles (for to what lengths may we not be driven by love!) may admit of extenuation upon the reflection of the beauties of poetry, preceding it. From the return of her fifter after the ineffectual intreaties to the Trojan, the folemn fcene takes place. There is not a particular omitted, which nature required.

4

The genius of the poet is admirably fubdued in the defcription of the horrid rites prepared by DIDO, introductory to the fatal catastrophe; rites, ftigmatised throughout the pagan world, as may be gathered from the queen's affertion,

Magicas invitam accingier artes,'

though very judiciously represented by Roman, as exercised in a barbarous king dom, and by a perfon in this difordered fituation. But the deceit of the Cartha ginian enamorata to fecure her own de ftruction can never be fufficiently esteemed, as the deliberate hypocrify of defpair;

⚫ Confilium vultu tegit, et fpem fronte ferenat."

What

DIDO's fuicide, however difgusting to the equal temper of refined fenfibility, was confor mable with the ideas of gloomy ftoicifm. Our poet, an half-concealed Epicurean, could yet fcarcely avoid, as a Roman, occafional facrifices to the completion of the oppofite fect. The former petitioned, with the fabmiffive fweetnefs of paftoral complaints, the reftoration of his farm; the latter, the haughty coward of defpair, evaded by felf-destruction a conflict with thofe paffions which he had not refolution to encounter.

Legions of advocates exifted at this feafon, whofe zeal confecrated the memory of the Utican CATO.

T

What wild hopes are ufually entertained, and what magic charms employed, in our more enlightened age, by the fondness of amorous difappointment! The prefent are fupported with a majesty declarative of the exalted condition of the fufferer; the expreffions poffefs the whole pathos, and the fentiments-far more than the nature of the ancient drama.*

But whatever encomiums are lavished on the poet's management of the episode, a fundamental error has been laboriously cenfured by one fet of critics, and as vehement

ly

* A pompous diftin&tion with some intrinfic difference has been affected by the critics between the borror and the terror experienced in the reader of tragical reprefentations: though thefe critics have familiarly placed one for the other. Indeed most of the fublime efforts in ancient tragedies are forced; and if we feel, it is for the author, not for the hero of his piece. Mad nefs painted by a SOPHOCLES, or an EURIPI DES, falls before that of poor OPHELIA.

ly defended by another. The anachronism, occafioned by the introduction of two cha racters, exifting in ages remote one from the other, is fo irreconcileable to the deli cacy of the former, that the poetical excel lences of the piece are overlooked; while the poet receives from the latter the tribute of admiration, for the political reafons which induced him boldly to overleap the bounds of history.

They, who in works of imagination hunt after the rigid exa&nefs of chronology will, on finding themselves difappointed in this idol of their expectations, read the poem with prejudice, and are in reality unfit judges of its merits.

Monf. SEGRAIS, who has fo ingeniously vindicated the Roman Eagle, has contented himself with the great diftance of time, wherein thefe events are represented to have paffed, from the days when VIRGIL AOrifhed; the obscurity, in which the anec dotes of the former æra is involved, re