Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 2.djvu/52

 may and ought to feign such things as he finds not there, if they can be brought to embellish that Subject which he treats. On the other side, the pains and diligence of ill Poets is but thrown away, when they want the Genius to invent and feign agreeably. But if the Fictions be delightful, which they always are, if they be natural, if they be of a piece; if the beginning, the middle, and the end be in their due places, and artfully united to each other, such Works can never fail of their deserv'd Success. And such is Virgil's Episode of Dido and Æneas; where the sourest Critick must acknowledge, That if he had depriv'd his Æneis of so great an Ornament, because he found no traces of it in Antiquity, he had avoided their unjust Censure, but had wanted one of the greatest Beauties of his Poem. I shall say more of this in the next Article of their Charge against him, which is, Want of Invention. In the mean time, I may affirm in honour of this Episode, that it is not only now esteem'd the most pleasing Entertainment of the Æneis, but was so accounted in his own Age; and before it was mellow'd into that reputation, which Time has given it; for which I need produce no other Testimony, than that of Ovid, his Contemporary.

Where by the way, you may observe, my Lord, that Ovid in those words, Non legitimo fædere junctus amor, will by no means allow it to be a lawful Marriage betwixt Dido and Æneas. He was in Banishment when he wrote those Verses, which I cite from his Letter to Augustus: You, Sir, saith he, have sent me into Exile for writing my Art of Love, and my wanton Elegies; yet your own Poet was happy in your good graces,