Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/79

 Fooleries, but separate, unmix'd, uniform, and divine, &c. Thus far Socrates, in a strain, much beyond the Socrate Crētien of Mr. Balsac: And thus that admirable Man lov'd his Phœdon, his Charmides, and Theætetus; and thus Virgil lov'd his Alexander, and Cebes, under the feign'd Name of Alexis: He receiv'd them illiterate, but return'd them to their Masters, the one a good Poet, and the other an excellent Grammarian: And to prevent all possible Misinterpretations, he warily inserted into the liveliest Episode in the whole Æneis, these words,

Nisus amore pio pueri.

And in the Sixth, Quique pii vates. He seems fond of the Words, castus, pius, Virgo, and the Compounds of it; and sometimes stretches the Use of that word further than one would think he reasonably should have done, as when he attributes it to Pasiphaé her self.