Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 2.djvu/49

 They were content to see their Founder false to Love, for still he had the advantage of the Amour: It was their Enemy whom he forsook, and she might have forsaken him, if he had not got the start of her: she had already forgotten her Vows to her Sichæus; and varium & mutabile semper Femina, is the sharpest Satire in the fewest words that ever was made on Womankind; for both the Adjectives are Neuter, and Animal must be understood, to make them Grammar. Virgil does well to put those words into the mouth of Mercury: If a God had not spoken them, neither durst he have written them, nor I translated them. Yet the Deity was forc'd to come twice on the same Errand: and the second time, as much a Heroe as Æneas was, he frighted him. It seems he fear'd not Jupiter so much as Dido. For your Lordship may observe, that as much intent as he was upon his Voyage, yet he still delay'd it, till the Messenger was oblig'd to tell him plainly, that if he weigh'd not Anchor in the Night, the Queen wou'd be with him in the Morning. Notumque furens quid Femina posit; she was Injur'd, she was Revengeful, she was Powerful. The Poet had likewise before hinted, that the People were naturally perfidious: For he gives their Character in the Queen, and makes a Proverb of Punica Fides, many Ages before it was invented.

Thus I hope, my Lord, that I have made good my Promise, and justify'd the Poet, whatever becomes of the false Knight. And sure a Poet is as much priviledg'd to lye, as an Ambassador, for the Honour and Interest of his Country; at least as Sir Henry Wotton has defin'd.

This naturally leads me to the defence of the Famous Anachronism, in making Æneas and Dido Contemporaries. For tis certain that the Heroe liv'd almost two hundred years before the Building of Carthage. One who imitates Bocaline, says that Virgil was accus'd