The variety of incidents, the consummate skill in the arrangement of them, the interest which pervades both the plot and the episodes, fully compensate for the want of originality—a defect of which none but learned readers would be aware. What sweeter specimens can be found of tender pathos than the legend of Camilla, and the episode of Nisus and Euryalus? Where is the turbulence of uncurbed passions united with womanly unselfish fondness, and queen-like generosity, painted with a more masterly hand than in the character of Dido? Where, even in the Iliad, are characters better sustained and more happily contrasted than the weak Latinus, the soldier-like Turnus, the simple-minded Evander, the feminine and retiring Lavinia, the barbarian Mezentius, who to the savageness of a wild beast joined the natural instinct, which warmed with the strongest affection for his son. The only character of which the conception is somewhat unsatisfactory is that of the hero himself: Æneas, notwithstanding his many virtues, fails of commanding the reader’s sympathy or admiration. He is full of faith in the providence of God, submits himself with entire resignation to His divine will—is brave, patient, dutiful—but he is cold and heartless, and, if the expression is allowable, unchivalrous. In his war with Turnus, he is so decidedly in the wrong, and the character of his injured adversary shines with such lustre, and is adorned with such gallantry, that one is inclined to transfer to him the interest and sympathy which ought to be felt for the hero alone. This is undoubtedly a fault, but it is counterbalanced by innumerable excellences. In personification, nothing is finer than Virgil’s portraiture of Fame, except perhaps Spenser’s Despair. In description, the same genius which shone forth in the Georgics, embellishes the Æneid also; and both the objects and the phenomena of nature are represented in language equally vivid and striking.