Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 2.djvu/88

 find not one in Homer, and I think not in any of the Greek Poets, or the Latin, excepting only Virgil; and there is no question but he thought, he had Virgil's Au­thority for that License. But I am confident, our Poet never meant to leave him or any other such a Precedent. And I ground my Opi­nion on these two Reasons. First, we find no Example of a Hemystick in any of his Pastorals or Georgicks. For he had given the last finish­ing Strokes to both these Poems: But his Æneis he left so uncorrect, at least so short of that perfection at which he aim'd, that we know how hard a Sentence He pass'd upon it: And in the second place, I reasonably presume, that he intended to have fill'd up all those Hemysticks, because in one of them we find the sense imperfect:

Which some foolish Gramarian, has ended for him, with a half Line of Nonsense.

For Ascanius must have been born some Years before the burning of that City; which I need not prove. On the other side we find also, that he himself fill'd up one Line in the sixth Aeneid, the Enthusiasm seiz­ing him, while he was reading to Augustus.

Misenum Æolidem, quo non præstantior alter Ære, ciere viros.

To which he added in that transport. Martemque accendere cantu: and never was any Line more nobly finish'd; for the Reasons which I have given in the Book of Painting. On these Considerations I have