AEneas told it, Dido heard it. That he had been so affectionate a
husband was no ill argument to the coming dowager that he might
prove as kind to her. Virgil has a thousand secret beauties, though
I have not leisure to remark them.
Segrais, on this subject of a hero's shedding tears, observes that
historians commend Alexander for weeping when he read the mighty
actions of Achilles; and Julius Caesar is likewise praised when out
of the same noble envy, he wept at the victories of Alexander. But
if we observe more closely, we shall find that the tears of AEneas
were always on a laudable occasion. Thus he weeps out of compassion
and tenderness of nature when in the temple of Carthage he beholds
the pictures of his friends who sacrificed their lives in defence of
their country. He deplores the lamentable end of his pilot
Palinurus, the untimely death of young Pallas his confederate, and
the rest which I omit. Yet even for these tears his wretched
critics dare condemn him; they make AEneas little better than a kind
of St.
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