ion, in the gloom of doom, lower with the ruining that
shall soon hide Mount Ida in a night of dust.

Forbid it, ye muses all! that we should whisper a word in dispraise of
Maro. But for what it is, not for what it is not, we love the AEneid. The
wafting over sea from an Asiatic to an Italian soil, and the setting there
of the acorn, which by the decree of the Destinies shall, in distant ages,
grow up into Rome, and the overshadowing Roman Empire--this majestic theme
appeals to the reason, and to the reason taught in the history of the
world. It is a deliberate, not an impassioning interest. And how
dominionless over our sympathy has the glowing and tender-hearted Virgil,
perhaps unavoidably, made the Hero, who impersonates his rational
interest! How unlike is this AEneas to that Achilles, round whose young
head, sacred to glory, Homer has gathered, as about one magnetic centre,
his tearful, fiery, turbulent, majestic, and magnanimous humanities!

Confess we must, reluctantly, that AEneas chills the AEneid. It was not that
Virgil had embraced a design greater than his poetical strength. But it
was in more than one respect unfortunately, unpoetically, conditioned.
That political foundation itself is to be made good by aggressive arms;
and by tearing a betrothed and enamoured beautiful bride from the youthful
and stately chivalrous prince, her lover, slain in fight against the
invaders; whilst the poor girl is to be made over to a widower, of whose
gallantry the most that we know is his ill-care of his wife, and his
running away from his mistress.

And thus, alas! it cannot be denied, the design of the _AEneis_ is carried
through without our great natural sympathies, as respects its end--against
them as respects its means. An insuperable difficulty! Did Virgil mistake,
then, in taking the subject? One hardly dares say so. The national
tradition offers to the national Epic poet the national Epic transaction;
and he accepts the offer. In doing so he allies by his theme his own to
the Homeric Epos. With all this, however, we do feel that fiery, and
all-powerful, and all-comprehensive genius projects the outline of the
_Iliad_ upon the canvass; whilst in this poetical history of the Trojan
plantation in Italy, we can ascribe to the general disposition and
invention hardly more than a prudent and skilful intelligence. But the
poetical soul, the creative fire then enters to possess the remainder of
the task. Was, after all, a