I need say no more in justification of our hero's courage, and am much deceived if he ever be attacked on this side of his character again. But he is arraigned with more show of reason by the ladies, who will make a numerous party against him, for being false to love in forsaking Dido; and I cannot much blame them, for, to say the truth, it is an ill precedent for their gallants to follow. Yet if I can bring him off with flying colours, they may learn experience at her cost; and for her sake avoid a cave as the worse shelter they can choose from a shower of rain, especially when they have a lover in their company.
In the first place, Segrais observes with much acuteness that they who blame AEneas for his insensibility of love when he left Carthage, contradict their former accusation of him for being always crying, compassionate, and effeminately sensible of those misfortunes which befell others. They give him two contrary characters; but Virgil makes him of a piece, always grateful, always tender-hearted. But they are impudent enough to discharge themselves of this blunder by haying the contradiction at Virgil's door. He, they say, has shown his hero with these inconsistent characters--acknowledging and ungrateful, compassionate and hard-hearted, but at the bottom fickle and self-interested; for Dido had not only received his weather-beaten troops before she saw him, and given them her protection, but had also offered them an equal share in her dominion:-
"Vultis et his mecum pariter considere regnis?
Urbem quam statuo, vesra est."
This was an obligement never to be forgotten, and the more to be considered because antecedent to her love. That passion, it is true, produced the usual effects of generosity, gallantry, and care to please, and thither we refer them; but when she had made all these advances, it was still in his power to have refused them.
After the intrigue of the cave--call it marriage, or enjoyment only--he was no longer free to take or leave; he had accepted the favour, and was obliged to be constant, if he would be grateful.
My lord, I have set this argument in the best light I can, that the ladies may not think I write booty; and perhaps it may happen to me, as it did to Doctor Cudworth, who has raised such strong objections against the being of a God and Providence, that many think he has not answered them. You may please at least to hear the adverse party. Segrais pleads for Virgil that no less than an absolute command from Jupiter could excuse this insensibility of the hero, and this abrupt departure, which looks so like extreme ingratitude; but at the same time he does wisely to remember you that Virgil had made piety the first character of AEneas; and this being allowed, as I am afraid it must, he was obliged, antecedent to all other considerations, to search an asylum for his gods in Italy--for those very gods, I say, who had promised to his race the universal empire.
Could a pious man dispense with the commands of Jupiter to satisfy his passion, or--take it in the strongest sense--to comply with the obligations of his gratitude? Religion, it is true, must have moral honesty for its groundwork, or we shall be apt to suspect its truth; but an immediate revelation dispenses with all duties of morality.
All casuists agree that theft is a breach of the moral law; yet if I might presume to mingle things sacred with profane, the Israelites only spoiled the Egyptians, not robbed them, because the propriety was transferred by a revelation to their lawgiver. I confess Dido was a very infidel in this point; for she would not believe, as Virgil makes her say, that ever Jupiter would send Mercury on such an immoral errand. But this needs no answer--at least, no more than Virgil gives it:-
"Fata obstant, placidasque viri Deus obstruit aures."
This notwithstanding, as Segrais confesses, he might have shown a little more sensibility when he left her, for that had been according to his character.
But let Virgil answer for himself. He still loved her, and struggled with his inclinations to obey the gods:-
"Curam sub corde premebat, Multa gemens, magnoque animum labefactus amore."
