pitched battle not exactly the thing in the
world the most kindly to the feelings and the best meted to the
understanding of the poet, commissioned to renown with verse the people
who fought more, and more successful, pitched battles than any other in
the world?

Were Virgil to write now, and you had to allot him his theme, what would
it be? A romance of knight-errantry? You would allot him none. You would
leave him free to the suggestions of his own delicious spirit. But he
thought himself bound to the Latin Epos. To speak in true critical
severity, the _AEneis_ has no Hero. It has a HEROINE. And who, pray, is
SHE? The seven-hilled Queen of the World. Like another Cybele, with her
turreted diadem, and gods for her children, in her arms and in her lap.
Herself heaven-descended--IMPERIAL ROME.

The two prophetical episodes--the Muster of the pre-existing ghosts before
the eyes of the great human ancestor, Anchises, in his Elysium--and those
anticipatory narrative Embossings of the Vulcanian shield, become in this
view integral and principal portions of the poem. That reviewing beside
that Elysian river, of the souls that are to animate Roman breasts, and to
figure in Roman chronicles, gave opportunity to Virgil of one Prophecy
that mingled mourning with triumph, and triumph with mourning. Victorious
over the Punic--victorious over the Gallic foe--carrying to the temple the
arms which he, a leader, stripped from a leader--the third consecrator of
such spoils--goes Marcellus. But who is He that moves at the side of the
hero? A youth, distinguished by his beauty and by his lustrous arms. The
Souls throng, with officious tumult, about him--and how much he resembles
his great companion! But on his destined brow sits no triumphal
lustre--mists and night cling about his head. Who is it? AEneas
enquires--and Anchises would fain withhold the reply. It is the descendant
of that elder Marcellus; and promises, were fatal decrees mutable, to
renew the prowess and praises of his famed progenitor. Fatal decrees might
not change, and the nephew of Augustus, the destined successor of his
reign, and the hopes of the Romans--OBIIT. You have often wept over
Virgil's verses--here are Dryden's:--

"AEneas here beheld, of form divine,
A godlike youth in glittering armour shine,
With great Marcellus keeping equal pace;
But gloomy were his eyes, dejected was his face.
He saw, and wond'ring, ask'd his airy guide,
What and of whenc