He takes no notice that Virgil is arraigned for placing piety before
valour, and making that piety the chief character of his hero. I
have said already from Bossu, that a poet is not obliged to make his
hero a virtuous man; therefore neither Homer nor Tasso are to be
blamed for giving what predominant quality they pleased to their
first character. But Virgil, who designed to form a perfect prince,
and would insinuate that Augustus (whom he calls AEneas in his poem)
was truly such, found himself obliged to make him without blemish--
thoroughly virtuous; and a thorough virtue both begins and ends in
piety. Tasso without question observed this before me, and
therefore split his hero in two; he gave Godfrey piety, and Rinaldo
fortitude, for their chief qualities or manners. Homer, who had
chosen another moral, makes both Agamemnon and Achilles vicious; for
his design was to instruct in virtue by showing the deformity of
vice. I avoid repetition of that I have said above. What follows
is translated literally from Segrais:-
"Virgil had considered that the greatest virtues of Augustus
consisted in the perfect art of governing his people, which caused
him to reign for more than forty years in great felicity.
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