My lord, I have set this argument in the best light I can, that the
ladies may not think I write booty; and perhaps it may happen to me,
as it did to Doctor Cudworth, who has raised such strong objections
against the being of a God and Providence, that many think he has
not answered them. You may please at least to hear the adverse
party. Segrais pleads for Virgil that no less than an absolute
command from Jupiter could excuse this insensibility of the hero,
and this abrupt departure, which looks so like extreme ingratitude;
but at the same time he does wisely to remember you that Virgil had
made piety the first character of AEneas; and this being allowed, as
I am afraid it must, he was obliged, antecedent to all other
considerations, to search an asylum for his gods in Italy--for those
very gods, I say, who had promised to his race the universal empire.
Could a pious man dispense with the commands of Jupiter to satisfy
his passion, or--take it in the strongest sense--to comply with the
obligations of his gratitude? Religion, it is true, must have moral
honesty for its groundwork, or we shall be apt to suspect its truth;
but an immediate revelation dispenses with all duties of morality.
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