Swithin hero, always raining. One of these censors was bold
enough to argue him of cowardice, when in the beginning of the first
book he not only weeps, but trembles, at an approaching storm:-
"Extemplo AEneae solvuntur frigore membra:
Ingemit, et duplices tendens ad sidera palmas," &c.
But to this I have answered formerly that his fear was not for
himself, but for his people. And who can give a sovereign a better
commendation, or recommend a hero more to the affection of the
reader? They were threatened with a tempest, and he wept; he was
promised Italy, and therefore he prayed for the accomplishment of
that promise;--all this in the beginning of a storm; therefore he
showed the more early piety and the quicker sense of compassion.
Thus much I have urged elsewhere in the defence of Virgil: and
since, I have been informed by Mr. Moyle, a young gentleman whom I
can never sufficiently commend, that the ancients accounted drowning
an accursed death. So that if we grant him to have been afraid, he
had just occasion for that fear, both in relation to himself and to
his subjects.
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