This
suspicion soon turned to jealousy, and jealousy to rage; then she
disdains and threatens, and again is humble and entreats: and,
nothing availing, despairs, curses, and at last becomes her own
executioner. See here the whole process of that passion, to which
nothing can be added. I dare go no farther, lest I should lose the
connection of my discourse.
To love our native country, and to study its benefit and its glory;
to be interested in its concerns, is natural to all men, and is
indeed our common duty. A poet makes a farther step for
endeavouring to do honour to it. It is allowable in him even to be
partial in its cause; for he is not tied to truth, or fettered by
the laws of history. Homer and Tasso are justly praised for
choosing their heroes out of Greece and Italy; Virgil, indeed, made
his a Trojan, but it was to derive the Romans and his own Augustus
from him; but all the three poets are manifestly partial to their
heroes in favour of their country. For Dares Phrygius reports of
Hector that he was slain cowardly; AEneas, according to the best
account, slew not Mezentius, but was slain by him; and the
chronicles of Italy tell us little of that Rinaldo d'Este who
conquers Jerusalem in Tasso.
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