Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 2.djvu/45

 he has not answer'd them. You may please at least to hear the adverse Party. Segrais pleads for Virgil, that no less than an Absolute Command from Jupiter, cou'd excuse this insensibility of the Heroe, and this abrupt departure, which looks so like extream Ingratitude. But at the same time, he does wisely to remember you, that Virgil had made Piety the first Character of Æneas: And this being allow'd, as I am afraid it must, he was oblig'd, antecedent to all other Considerations, to search an Asylum for his Gods in Italy. For those very Gods, I say, who had promis'd to his Race the Universal Empire. Cou'd a Pious Man dispence with the Commands of Jupiter, to satisfie his Passion; or take it in the strongest sence, to comply with the Obligations of his Gratitude? Religion, tis true, must have Moral Honesty for its ground-work, 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 Prophane, the Israelites only spoil'd the Egyptians, not rob'd them; because the propriety was transferr'd, by a revelation to their Law-giver. I confess Dido was a very Infidel in this Point; for she wou'd not believe, as Virgil makes her say, that ever Jupiter wou'd send Mercury on such an Immoral Errand. But this needs no Answer, at least no more than Virgil gives it:

This notwithstanding, as Segrais confesses, he might have shewn a little more sensibility when he left her; for that had been according to his Character. But let Virgil answer for himself. He still lov'd her, and struggled with his Inclinations, to obey the Gods: Rh