Upon the whole matter, and humanly speaking, I doubt there was a fault somewhere: and Jupiter is better able to bear the blame, than either Virgil or Æneas. The poet, it seems, had found it out, and therefore brings the deserting hero and the forsaken lady to meet together in the lower regions, where he excuses himself when it is too late; and accordingly she will take no satisfaction, nor so much as hear him. Now Ségrais is forced to abandon his defence, and excuses his author, by saying, that the Æneïs is an imperfect work, and that death prevented the divine poet from reviewing it; and for that reason he had condemned it to the fire;[57] though, at the same time, his two translators must acknowledge, that the Sixth Book is the most correct of the whole Æneïs. Oh! how convenient is a machine sometimes in a heroic poem! This of Mercury is plainly one; and Virgil was constrained to use it here, or the honesty of his hero would be ill-defended. And the fair sex, however, if they had the deserter in their power, would certainly have shewn him no more mercy than the Bacchanals did Orpheus: for, if too much constancy may be a fault sometimes, then want of constancy, and ingratitude after the last favour, is a crime that never will be forgiven. But, of machines, more in their proper place; where I shall shew, with how much judgment they have been used by Virgil; and, in the mean time, pass to another article of his defence, on the present subject; where, if I cannot clear the hero, I hope at least to bring off the poet; for here I must divide their causes. Let Æneas trust to his machine, which will only help to break his fall; but the address is incomparable. Plato, who borrowed so much from Homer, and yet concluded for the banishment of all poets, would at least have rewarded Virgil, before he sent him into exile. But I go farther, and say, that he ought to be acquitted, and deserved, beside, the bounty of Augustus, and the gratitude of the Roman people. If, after this, the ladies will stand out, let them remember, that the jury is not all agreed; for Octavia was of his party, and was of the first quality in Rome; she was also present at the reading of the Sixth Æneïd: and we know not that she condemned Æneas; but we are sure she presented the poet, for his admirable elegy on her son Marcellus. But let us consider the secret reasons which Virgil had, for thus framing 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 Æneïs, yet there he has given its beginning, its progress, its traverses, and its conclusion; and had exhausted so entirely this subject, that he could resume it but very slightly in the eight ensuing books.