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:--