Page:An Essay on Virgil's Æneid.djvu/73

Rh and himself were the wisest of all the. Now, is the Translator, in this Case, to follow his Author or not? Is he to preserve the Manners of the Ancients, in the Characters of his Heroes, or is he to modernize them, and to make and  appear the most accomplish’d, finest Gentlemen in the World’?What this learned Gentleman says in Defence of ’s Heroes, is applicable to  who was their Cotemporary. And, with the utmost Propriety, makes his Hero commend himself with that Freedom and Openness of Behaviour, that was in Use among the Ancients; when Men spoke to express their Thoughts, as they now do to conceal them.

539. And her majestic Port confest the God.] The Translation in this Place ventures to call a God. calls her so in the next Book. And in this very Verse he takes as great a Liberty, by leaving two Vowels opening upon one another. The Word in the Greek is us’d promiscuously in either Gender. (Not to mention, , , and ) is call’d a God by  in the fifth Iliad, and by Mr. Pope, as good an Authority, in the Translation.

636.'s fatal Flood.] The River, or , is here call’d fatal, because if the Horses of King of , who came to the Assistance of , had