from the vengeance of the woman he had wronged!

And how noble is the simplicity of Andromache, how affecting the appeal in
which, after reminding her husband that all else to which she was bound
had been swept away, she tells him that, while he remains, her other
losses are unfelt! Let us trace the episode. "She had not gone," the poet
tells us, "to the mansions of her brothers or of her sisters, with their
floating veils; neither had she gone to the shrine of Minerva, where the
Trojan women strove to appease the terrible wrath of the fair-haired
goddess. No. She had gone to the lofty tower of Ilium, for she had heard
that the Trojans were sore harassed, and that the force of the Greeks was
mighty; thither, like one bereft of reason, had she precipitated her
steps, and the nurse followed with her child." Then follows that
interview, which no one can read without passion, or think of without
delight--that exquisite scene, in which the wife and mother pours out all
her tenderness, her joy, her sadness, her pride, her terror, the memory of
the past, and the presage of future sorrow, in an irresistible torrent of
confiding love. Not less affecting is her husband's answer. Conscious of
his impending doom, he replies, that "not the future misery of his
countrymen, not that of Hecuba herself, and the royal Priam--not that of
all his valiant brethren slain by their enemies, and trampled in the dust,
give him such a pang as the thought of her distress." Then, as if to
relieve his thoughts, he stretches out his hand towards his child, but the
child shrinks backwards, scared at the brazen helm and waving crest--the
father and the mother exchange a smile--Hector lays aside the blazing
helmet, and, clasping his child in his arms, utters the noble prayer which
Dryden has rendered with uncommon spirit and fidelity:--

"Parent of gods and men, propitious Jove,
And you, bright synod of the powers above,
On this my son your precious gifts bestow;
Grant him to love, and great in arms to grow,
To reign in Troy, to govern with renown,
To shield the people, and assert the crown:
That when hereafter he from war shall come,
And bring his Trojans peace and triumph home,
Some aged man, who lives this act to see,
And who in former times remember'd me,
May say, 'The son in fortitude and fame,
Outgoes the mark, and drowns his father's name;'
That at these words his mother may rejoice,
And