42 REMARKS on fime Pqffhges of 



f elf deftroyers in general are guilty of no fault; for he places 

 eyen thefe infontej, who in refpedl of others were comparatively 

 innocent, in an uncomfortable fituation, and fays, that they 

 would now return to the earth if they could, and willingly 

 fubmit to poverty, and thofe other evils, which when alive they 

 thought infupportable. By the word infontes, therefore, as here 

 applied, I underftand fuch unhappy perfons as had deftroyed 

 themfelves, without being chargeable with any other great 

 wickednefs. Had they been guilty of impiety, injuftice, want 

 of natural afFedion, or any grofs immorality, they would, ac- 

 cording to our author's plan of retribution, have been configned 

 to everlafting punifliment in Tartarus. But as we find them in 

 a ftate of expiatory fuffering, and charaderifed by this epithet, 

 we muft, I think, fuppofe, that the poet here fpeaks of that 

 felf-deftrucflion, which, being partly the effedl of infirmity, 

 was, in his judgment, the objecfl of pity as well as of difap- 

 probation. 



The Trojan and his guide were now arrived at that part of 

 the melancholy plains, where the country, if I may call it f<^ 

 feemed to open into a wider extent. Here was a diftri(fl, 

 where, in a myrtle grove, were wandering the fhades of un- 

 happy lovers. Here Eneas met with Dido, who had rejoined 

 her hultand Sicheus ; and here he faw feveral others, fome of 

 whom, by the by, had led fuch lives on earth as would feem: 

 to deferve a feverer doom than that of Virgil's purgatory. 



Adjoining to the grove of lovers, and at the furtheft ex- 

 tremity of thefe regions, was a province inhabited by deceafed 

 warriors. Here he found feveral of his old acquaintance, who 

 were glad to fee him, and converfe and walk with him, and 

 curious to know the occafion of his coming. The Grecian 

 ghofts knew him likewife, and fled from before him, as they 

 had been accuftomed to do in the Trojan war. Here he faw 

 the fliade of his brother-in-law Deiphobus, in the fame mangled 

 condition in which his body had been left by the Greeks in the 



night 



