In the case of the men it is possible that Sexual Selection occasionally came into play, when early betrothals did not prevent it; for the old Romans were too rational to anticipate the silly and criminal French custom of bargaining for a bride before they had even seen her. In such a case, if the bride was attractive, the suitor’s imagination, dwelling on the fact that this vision of loveliness was to be his own, exclusively, for ever, may have been warmed for a moment with something very like romantic sentiment. But beauty in Rome, Ovid informs us, was very rare—"How few are able to boast it!"—so that even with the men who had a choice, Individual Preference based on Personal Beauty could have been rarely exercised. And as for the women who had no choice, they may have felt a temporary elation on first meeting their destined husbands; but this feeling was merely the manifestation of a vague instinct, comparable to the “love” which a bevy of modern boarding-school “buds” show for the only man they are allowed to see regularly,—their ugly teacher,—and the unreality and silliness of which they laugh at themselves when they are at last allowed to meet the man of their own, individual, free choice, who teaches them the feeling of real Romantic Love. VIRGIL, DRYDEN, AND SCOTT Nevertheless, compared with Greek literature, the works of the Roman poets show an advance in their conception of Love; for they avoid at least the Hellenic confusion of love with friendship. Compared with the best modern poets, however, who labour with the pure gold of Love alone, the Roman poet’s productions still show much of the base ore from which the modern gold has been extracted. It is interesting, in this connection, to read what Dryden has to say concerning Virgil’s conception of Love, and Scott’s comments on Dryden. In his dedication of the _Æneid_, Dryden speaks of Book IV. as "This noble episode, wherein the whole passion of love is more exactly described than in any other poet. Love was the theme of his fourth book; and though it is the shortest of the whole Æneis, yet there he has given its beginning, its progress, its traverses, and its conclusion; and had exhausted so entirely his subject, that he could resume it but very slightly in the eight ensuing books.