s for stupid conjurers, for jewels, for paintings, for all
sorts of whims. There was a heap belonging to sophists and astrologers,
and a still greater to poets.[14]

Astolfo, with leave of the "writer of the dark Apocalypse," took
possession of his own. He had but to uncork it, and set it under his
nose, and the wit shot up to its place at once. Turpin acknowledges that
the Paladin, for a long time afterwards, led the life of a sage man,
till, unfortunately, a mistake which he made lost him his brains a second
time.[15]

The Evangelist now presented him with the vial containing the wits of
Orlando, and the travellers quitted the vale of Lost Treasure. Before
they returned to earth, however, the good saint chewed his guest other
curiosities, and favoured him with many a sage remark, particularly on
the subject of poets, and the neglect of them by courts. He shewed him
how foolish it was in princes and other great men not to make friends of
those who can immortalise them; and observed, with singular indulgence,
that crimes themselves might be no hindrance to a good name with
posterity, if the poet were but feed well enough for spices to embalm the
criminal. He instanced the cases of Homer and Virgil.

"You are not to take for granted," said he, "that AEneas was so pious
as fame reports him, or Achilles and Hector so brave. Thousands and
thousands of warriors have excelled them; but their descendents bestowed
fine houses and estates on great writers, and it is from their honoured
pages that all the glory has proceeded. Augustus was no such religious or
clement prince as the trumpet of Virgil has proclaimed him. It was his
good taste in poetry that got him pardoned his iniquitous proscription.
Nero himself might have fared as well as Augustus, had he possessed as
much wit. Heaven and earth might have been his enemies to no purpose, had
he known how to keep friends with good authors. Homer makes the Greeks
victorious, the Trojans a poor set, and Penelope undergo a thousand
wrongs rather than be unfaithful to her husband; and yet, if you would
have the real truth of the matter, the Greeks were beaten, and the
Trojans the conquerors, and Penelope was a --. [16] See, on the other
hand, what infamy has become the portion of Dido. She was honest to her
heart's core; and yet, because Virgil was no friend of hers, she is
looked upon as a baggage.

"Be not surprised," concluded the good saint, "if I have expressed myself
with wa