Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 2.djvu/24

 forth the ruinous Effects of Discord in the Camp of those Allies, occasion'd by the Quarrel betwixt the General, and one of the next in Office under him. Agamemnon gives the provocation, and Achilles resents the injury. Both Parties are faulty in the Quarrel, and accordingly they are both punish'd: the Aggressor is forc'd to sue for Peace to his Inferior, on dishonourable Conditions; the Deserter refuses the satisfaction offer'd, and his Obstinacy costs him his best Friend. This works the Natural Effect of Choler, and turns his Rage against him, by whom he was last Affronted, and most sensibly. The greater Anger expels the less; but his Character is still preserv'd. In the mean time, the Grecian Army receives Loss on Loss, and is half destroy'd by a Pestilence into the Bargain.

As the Poet, in the first part of the Example, had shewn the bad effects of Discord, so after the Reconcilement, he gives the good effects of Unity. For Hector is slain, and then Troy must fall. By this, tis probable, that Homer liv'd when the Median Monarchy was grown formidable to the Grecians: and that the joint Endeavours of his Country-men, were little enough to preserve their common Freedom, from an encroaching Enemy. Such was his Moral, which all Criticks have allow'd to be more Noble than that of Virgil; though not adopted to the times in which the Roman Poet liv'd. Had Virgil flourish'd in the Age of Ennius, and address'd to Scipio, he had probably taken the same Moral, or some other not unlike it. For then the Romans were in as much danger from the Carthaginian Commonwealth, as the Grecians were from the Assyrian, or Median Monarchy. But we are to consider him as writing his Poem in a time when the Old