546 Lyceum of Ancient Literature.x—Virgil’s Zneid. [J aly fy 
they are mere copies of those in the 
Viiad, less diffuse, but also with infinitely 
less energy and spint. The #neid, itis 
true, must be considered with the indul- 
yence due to an unfinished poem. It is 
said that Virgil could not be induced to 
recite to Augustus more than the first, 
second, fourth, and sixth books; and 
these are certainly the most beautiful. 
Vie-had exhausted all that the imagina- 
tion could invent in the descent of 
#Eneas into the infernal regions, and all 
that the heart could suggest in the cha- 
racter of Dido. ‘Yerror and compassion 
could not be so forcibly excited, after 
the description of the ruin of Troy. 
From the elevated point which.the poet 
in his fligbt had reached, he could not, 
perhaps, descend, without discovering a 
material depression in the dignity and 
interest of his poem. 
The most striking defect observable in 
the conduct of the latter part of the 
iEneid, sisy:that the reader is tempted to 
take paré'‘with Turnus against /Eneas. 
Turnus, a brave and gallant prince, is 
attached to Lavinia, who betrays no re- 
pugnance to his wishes. He is favoured 
by ber mother, ‘and the Latins and the 
Rutuli equally desire an union, which is - 
to conorm the public tranguillity. Amid 
these favourable auspices, a stranger, a 
fugitive trom Troy, airives, to destroy the 
flaiterng prospects. He sends an em- 
bascy to demand an asylum from the old 
king of Latium, who, without any appa- 
rent motive, mmmediately offers him his 
daughter in marriage. Hence follows a 
erucl and destructive war, in which 
Turnus, while bravely fighting for his 
mistress and his throne, is slain by 
dkueas, and the mother of Lavinia, in 
despair, puts an end to her life. 
Such a plan was not caiculated to make 
ws think favourably of the hero., This 
defect might have been easily remedied 
by making sEneas deliver Lavinia trom 
the persecution of an enemy equally 
odious to Ler and her country, instead of 
drawing Turnus as a young and amiable 
lover, who has so many ciaims upon her 
tenderness. Aneas appears in the un- 
pleasing light of a foreign usurper, who 
deprives Lavinia of a prince to whom 
she is attached, and as the spoiler of the 
country of which he ought to have been 
the defender, It is singular that Virgil: 
did not consider how much his poem 
would have been improved by lessening 
the attraction of the ether characters, 
and bestowimg the chief interest upen his 
hero. A disposition such a3 we have 
: 4 
mentioned, would have been a source of 
innumerable beauties; and the last 
books of the Eneid would have equalled 
the furmer in dignity and pathos. But 
it is not to be supposed that they are ab- 
solutely destitute of merit. In each, the 
characteristic beauties of Virgil may be 
traced, It is,- indeed, wonderful how 
much the ferce of his art has drawn from 
so sterile a subject. In every page we 
see him struggling against difficulties, se 
lecting with caution, and distributing with 
judgment, what Homer has scattered in 
such lawless profusion. 
Another reason may account for the 
defective arrangement of the ueid, 
which renders it, as a poem, so much in- 
ferior to the Iliad. The war of Troy was 
sO great an event in the annals of the 
world, that the heroes who were engaged 
in it still lived in the recollection of mau- 
kind. Their names were consecrated by 
fame, were familiar to the imagination, 
and the perpetual theme of admiration 
and applause. Nothing can be more fat 
vourable to a poet than to be in posses- 
sion of a subject where the actors inspire 
an interest independent of that which he 
himself creates. Thus the first six books 
are filled with names already immortal- 
ized by Homer; but in the seventh and 
remaining cantos, we are introduced into 
‘a new world, and presented with per- 
sonages absolutely unknown, and with 
whom, from the nature of the plan, the 
reader could not be made previously ac» 
quainted. We therefore soon discover 
how little susceptible of interest are the 
names of Messapus, Ufens, Tarchen, and 
Mezentius, compared with Ajax, Hec- 
tor, Ulysses, and Diomed. Homer, in 
selecting the siege of Troy as a subject, 
bad chosen what was considered the 
greatest event then known; while Vir- 
gil, who intended to celebrate the origin 
of Rome, was compelled to explore the 
antiquities of Italy, as, obscure and im- 
perfect as those of Greece wére familiar 
and illustrious. The heroes of Homer 
have been admired by every nation, and 
represented upon every stage. Weare 
accustomed to behold them in the 
same scenes with the gods themselves, 
and they appear not unworthy of such 
compalions, 
sent the grandest spectacle; Europe and 
Asia seem engaged in the mighty contest, 
while those of the neid are the petty — 
struggles of petty tribes. Such a con= 
The wars of the Iliad pre- 
trast could not but be unfavourable to 
Virgil, 
some interest upen Pallas, the son of 
Evander, | 
, 
: 
He has endeavoured to throw - 
