In the last place, for the Dira, or flying pest, which, flapping on the shield of Turnus, and fluttering about his head, disheartened him in the duel, and presaged to him his approaching death, I might have placed it more properly amongst the objections: for the critics, who lay want of courage to the charge of Virgil's hero, quote this passage as a main proof of their assertion. They say our author had not only secured him before the duel, but also, in the beginning of it, had given him the advantage in impenetrable arms, and in his sword; for that of Turnus was not his own, which was forged by Vulcan for his father, but a weapon which he had snatched in haste, and by mistake, belonging to his charioteer Metiscus; that, after all this, Jupiter, who was partial to the Trojan, and distrustful of the event, though he had hung the balance, and given it a jog of his hand to weigh down Turnus, thought convenient to give the Fates a collateral security, by sending the screech-owl to discourage him: for which they quote these words of Virgil, ----_Non me tua turbida virtus Terret, ait: dî me terrent, et Jupiter hostis_.[70] In answer to which, I say, that this machine is one of those which the poet uses only for ornament, and not out of necessity. Nothing can be more beautiful or more poetical than his description of the three Diræ, or the setting of the balance, which our Milton has borrowed from him, but employed to a different end: for, first, he makes God Almighty set the scales for St Gabriel and Satan, when he knew no combat was to follow; then he makes the good angel's scale descend, and the Devil's mount, quite contrary to Virgil, if I have translated the three verses according to my author's sense: _Jupiter ipse duas æquato examine lances Sustinet; et fata imponit diversa duorum; Quem damnet labor, et quo vergat pondere letum_. for I have taken these words, _quem damnet labor_, in the sense which Virgil gives them in another place,--_damnabis tu quoque votis_,--to signify a prosperous event. Yet I dare not condemn so great a genius as Milton: for I am much mistaken if he alludes not to the text in Daniel, where Belshazzar was put into the balance, and found too light.--This is digression; and I return to my subject. I said above, that these two machines of the balance and the Dira were only ornamental, and that the success of the duel had been the same without them: for, when Æneas and Turnus stood fronting each other before the altar, Turnus looked dejected, and his colour faded in his face, as if he desponded of the victory before the fight; and not only he, but all his party, when the strength of the two champions was judged by the proportion of their limbs, concluded it was _impar pugna_, and that their chief was overmatched: whereupon Juturna (who was of the same opinion) took this opportunity to break the treaty and renew the war. Juno herself had plainly told the nymph beforehand, that her brother was to fight