Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 3.djvu/366

824 This Note, which is out of its proper place, I deferr'd on pur­pose, to place it here: Because it discovers the Principles of our Po­et more plainly than any of the rest.

Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo, Projice tela manu, Sanguis meus!

Anchises here speaks to Julius Cæsar; and commands him first to lay down Arms; which is a plain condemnation of his Cause. Yet observe our Poet's incomparable Address: For though he shews him­self sufficiently to be a Common-wealth's-man; yet in respect to Au­gustus, who was his Patron, he uses the Authority of a Parent, in the Person of Anchises; who had more right to lay this Injunction on Cæsar than on Pompey; because the latter was not of his Blood. Thus our Author cautiously veils his own opinion, and takes Sanctuary under Anchises; as if that Ghost wou'd have laid the same Command on Pompey also, had he been lineally descended from him. What cou'd be more judiciously contriv'd, when this was the Æneid which he chose to read before his Master?

Line 1222. A new Marcellus shall arise in thee. In Virgil thus. Tu Marcellus eris.

How unpoetically and baldly had this been translated; Thou shalt Marcellus be! Yet some of my Friends were of Opinion, that I mistook the Sense of Virgil in my Translation. The French