Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/105

, ''talk of himself. There is generally more of the Passion of Narcissus, than concern for Chloris and Corinna in this whole Affair. Be pleas'd to look into almost any of those Writers, and you shall meet every where that eternal Moy, which the admirable Paschal so judiciously condemns. Homer can never be enough admir'd for this one so particular Quality, that he never speaks of himself, either in the Iliad, or the Odysses; and if Horace had never told us his Genealogy, but left it to the Writer of his Life, perhaps he had not been a loser by it. This Consideration might induce those great Criticks, Varius and Tucca, to raze out the four first Verses of the Æneis, in great measure, for the sake of that unlucky Ille ego. But extraordinary Genius's have a sort of Prerogative, which may dispense them from Laws, binding to Subject-Wits. However, the Ladies have the less Reason to be pleas'd with those Addresses, of which the Poet takes the greater share to himself. Thus the Beau presses into their Dressing-Room, but it is not so much to adore their fair Eyes, as to adjust his own Steenkirk and Peruke, and set his Countenance in their Glass.''

A fifth Rule, (which one may hope will not be contested) is that the Writer should shew in his Compositions, some competent skill of the Subject matter, that which makes the Character of the Persons introduc'd. In this, as in all other Points of Learning, Decency, and