But
of machines, more in their proper place, where I shall show with how
much judgment they have been used by Virgil; and in the meantime
pass to another article of his defence on the present subject,
where, if I cannot clear the hero, I hope at least to bring off the
poet, for here I must divide their causes. Let AEneas trust to his
machine, which will only help to break his fall; but the address is
incomparable. Plato, who borrowed so much from Homer, and yet
concluded for the banishment of all poets, would at least have
rewarded Virgil before he sent him into exile; but I go farther, and
say that he ought to be acquitted, and deserved, beside, the bounty
of Augustus and the gratitude of the Roman people. If after this
the ladies will stand out, let them remember that the jury is not
all agreed; for Octavia was of his party, and was of the first
quality in Rome: she was also present at the reading of the sixth
AEneid, and we know not that she condemned AEneas, but we are sure
she presented the poet for his admirable elegy on her son Marcellus.
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