But there is a more serious defect in the interest of the Æneid, when presented to English readers. It is, that Æneas is no hero. All the defences and apologies which have been made for him are perfectly just, and perfectly unnecessary. He was a hero quite good enough for the court of Augustus, and so far quite suitable for Virgil’s purpose. Le Bossu was perfectly right when he contended that a hero, to be an object of legitimate interest, need not be a pattern of moral virtues. He might have gone further, and said that such paragons, who are plainly superior to the ordinary weaknesses of human nature, generally make very dull heroes indeed. Undoubtedly Æneas is a dutiful son, a respectable father, and, it may even be admitted, in spite of the unfortunate way in which he lost his wife, an exemplary husband. He spread his palms out to heaven in the most orthodox fashion on all occasions, and listened obediently to the message which the gods were always sending him, to set up his home in Latium at all costs. All these estimable qualities are enough to furnish forth a dozen heroes. He is also ready to fight on all proper occasions; and as to the charge that he is equally ready to weep upon all occasions, which has been brought against him by one set of critics, and excused by others, both might have spared their pens; for it is a weakness which may be charged with equal truth upon most of the heroes, not only of classical fiction, but of classical history. It is not only that the chiefs of the Iliad weep without fearing any imputation against their manliness, but if we are to trust the unsensational chronicles of Cæsar, the whole rank and file of his army, even the veterans of the tenth legion--the “fighting division”--when first they heard that they were to be led against the tall and truculent-looking Germans, “could not restrain their tears,” and set to work to make their wills forthwith. The thing is unaccountable, except from some strange difference of temperament; for who can imagine a company of our veriest raw ploughboy recruits so behaving themselves? They might shake in their very shoes; they might even very probably run away: but crying and howling is not our way of expressing emotion, after childhood is past. But we are accustomed to read of such exhibitions of feeling in the natives of warmer climates, as, for instance, in the characters of Scripture; and an occasional burst of tears on Æneas’s part would not have unheroed him in our estimation one whit. It is his desertion of Dido which makes an irredeemable poltroon of him in all honest English eyes. A woman and a queen receives the shipwrecked wanderer with a more than Oriental hospitality; loves him, “not wisely but too well”--and he deserts her. And then Mercury is made to remark, as a reason for Æneas getting away as quickly as possible, that “varium et mutabile semper _fœmina_!”--that the poor _lady’s_ mood was