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THE COURANT; A SOUTHERN LITERARY JOURNAL. 71
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For the Courant.
QUEEN DIDO; OR VIRGIL AND THE CRITICS.
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BY WILLIE EAST.
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When the Trojan Hero, "multum et terris jactatus et alto,"
arrived at Carthage, he found the whole city in a whirl of busi-
ness; some building houses, some selecting sites for others,
and some administering the laws. After admiring the fervens
opus, and lamenting his own sad fortune as a wandering and
homeless exile from his native Ilion, he passes through the
midst of the workmen, concealed from view by his "goddess
mother," and proceeds to a "grove of joyous shade," in the
heart of the city. Here he enters a temple of Juno, "rich in
gifts and the halo-light" of the reigning divinity; and, for
the first time, hails the beacon-light of hope in the distance.--
The gifts of the temple were paintings. Their subjects were
borrowed from the tale of Troy. They were the solace which
his weary heart received; for he felt, as Virgil beautifully says,
that even here
"Sunt luchrimæ rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt."
Meantime Dido enters, accompanied by a great crowd, and
intent on the business of her realm. She appears to the heart-
sick hero as fair and graceful as Diana, when, attended by a
band of Oreads, she leads the dance on snowy Cynthus, or the
flowery banks of Eurotas. He longs to burst through the cloud
that conceals him, but the yet uncertain reception of the queen
deters him. But when, in reply to the speech of Ilioneous, she
says to the Trojans, "the city I build is yours," and, "would
that king Æneas himself were present;" Venus bears away the
mystic covering, and he stands revealed to all. He addresses
her in terms of grateful compliment; and promises, whatever
land may be his, to remember her, while the rivers run, the
mountains stand, and "heaven feeds the stars."
Hereupon commences that wild and passionate love of Dido
for Æneas, which, fed by his unlucky fondness for her in return,
afterwards led to her self-destruction, when the messenger of
Jove woke up the hero from his sleep of dalliance and delay to
the stern fates which gave him Italy and robbed him of his
love. His departure from Carthage is, indeed, one of the most
interesting points in the Æneid; for on the judgment which
we form of his conduct towards Dido, greatly depends the
interest we take in the after part of the poem.
Symmons, but more particularly Prof. Anthon, seems bent
on making Æneas a wretch, devoid of the common feelings of
humanity. Our opinion is that he loved Dido deeply and ten-
derly, but this love for her was governed by his piety. Brutus
loved Cæsar much, but Rome more: so he slew his friend to
save his country: Thus Virgil's hero loved the "luckless
queen." A few reasons for this opinion:
The gallantry of the American causes him to forget the piety
of the Trojan. He had become an exile in obedience to the
mandates of higher poweres. Grynean Apollo, and the Lycian
lots commanded him to settle Italy. Left to himself his first
desire would have been to spend his life in rebuilding Troy,
and cherishing the remains of his countrymen. But, warmed
even by the shade of Creusa, he departs. He fixes his first
abode at Ænas, a city on the shores of Thrace; but the "prodi-
gy of the bleeding myrtle and the bleeding corse of Polydorus,"
urging him to fly the place, elicits his unhesitating obedience.
When at Delos he consults the oracle of Thymbrean Apollo, the
earth trembles, Cynthus nods, and the sacred tripod moans in
the inmost recesses of the temple; while a voice says to him,
"antiquam exquirite matrem." He obeys again. He halts next
in Creto and begins to build a new Pergamus. But the sky
grows dark, and the infected air blights man and beast and
tree; the Dog-star withers the fields; and the images of the
Trojan Penates and national gods appearing to him in dreams,
he yields to the indications of their wills, and leaves the shores
of Creto. On the shores of the Strophades they prepare a sump-
tuous banquet, a first and second time, and as often the Har-
pies descend from the mountains and plunder the table, utter-
ing their hideous cries and feasting on the viands. Then the
hoarse voice of Celæno warns him off, and the south wind swells
the willing sails again. We might multiply instances--in par-
ticular the ever-manifest desire of Æneas to obey the injunc-
tions of Helenus; but these are sufficient to show that he might
have loved and wedded the Carthaginian queen, and abandoned
her only when morally compelled to do so by higher powers.--
He had lived in the "sancto lumine" of the gods, was himself
goddess-born; and the high tenor and tendency of his "morale"
are not to be repudiated by that unworthy and bootless gallan-
try which would make woman, dear as she is, an idol.
The editors, before mentioned, are very much shocked at the
farewell speech of Æneas to Dido, in IV Book. They catch the
gale of invective from the poor queen, and call him a Hyrcan-
æan tiger! But it seems to us that the speech displays much
dignity, genuine love and tenderness of feeling. Before address-
ing her, he meditates,--

"Quae mollissima fandi
"Tempora, quis rebus dexter modus.,

He then begins by telling her that his grateful heart will re-
member her as long as it beats; and ends with saying that he
seeks Italy "non sponte"--not willingly.

Æneas unintentionally and unknowingly excited this reckless
passion in the love-sick queen. We quote from Book IV, one of
the most touchingly beautiful figures in the Æneid, in proof of
this:--

------"Est edo mollis flamma medullas.
* * * et tacitum vivit sub pectore vulnus.
Uritur infelix Dido, totâque vagatur
Urbe furens: qualis conjectâ cerva sagillâ,
Quam procal incautam nemora inter cresia fixit
Pastor agens telis, liquitque volatile ferrum
NESCIUS, &c."

Had the hero been a cunning villain would the emotions of
the queen have escaped his notice?
In IV Book again we find Æneas meeting the shade of Elissa,
in the realms of the dead, and if we can trust the words of mor-
tal lips in such solemn associations, we may settle the vexed
question satisfactorily and at once:

"Per sidera juro,
Per superos, et, si que fides tellure sub imâ est,
Invitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi."

These are the chief reasons which convince us that Prof. An-
thon and Mr. Symmons have taken a very partial and inartistic
view of this important subject. Indeed, the insensibility which
they ascribe to the conduct of Æneas on this occasion, is alto-
gether inconsistent with that flow and fervor of sentiment
which he everywhere displays in his first long narration speech
before the "hapless queen." Could he who led "the boy, As-
canius" by the hand, from the smoking ruins of Troy, be un-
moved at the sight of a heart-broken lover? Or he, who car-
ried off his aged father on his back, not "feel for others' woe?"
Or he who risked his life to save his boy-love, Creusa, who
loved him so dearly that her very shade called him "sweet hus-
band;"--had he no tear to shed for another who clung to him
more passionately, if not so truly? Or could he who so deeply
mourned over the sad fate of Polydorus and Andromache re-
main motionless before the raging tide of disappointed and dis-
tracted love? How well, too, this view of the subject comports
with our wishes! for, if Anthon be right, our love of the char-
acter of Æneas, and consequently our pleasure in the poem, in
a measure, ceases here. It is a deep injustice to the genius of
Virgil, to tell us that he spend seventeen years in showing his
inability to manage a plot and sustain a character in, indeed,
its strongest point of individuality, at the same time.
But let us drop a tear of sympathy and sorrow on the fune-
ral-pile of Dido. Her love--as woman's ever is--was "wild
and deep." Alas! it is true to history in another respect--its
course did not run smoothe! How different in life were Æneas
and Romeo; and how like in death were Dido and Juliet! Ah!
love is madness--a sweet madness, a madness that we dote on
and cling to till it consumes us; yet love itself is innocent,
pure, heaven-born: it is despair that has the serpent's fang.
Love and hope make heaven.
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THE SEXTON.
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Nigh to a grave that was newly made,
Leaned a sexton on his earth-worn spade;
His work was done and he paused to wait
The funeral train through the open gate;
A relic of by-gone days was he,
And his locks were white as the foamy sea--
And these words came from his lips so thin,
"I gather them in! I gather them in!"

'I gather them in! for man and boy,
Year after year of grief and joy,
I've builded the houses that lie around
In every nook of this burial ground.
Mother and daughter, father and son,
Come to my solitude, one by one,
But come they strangers, come they kin,
I gather them in! I gather them in!

"Many are with me, but still I'm alone!
I--the king of the dead--and I make my throne
On a monument slab of marble cold;
And my sceptre of rule is the spade I hold.
Come they from cottage, or come they from hall--
Mankind are my subjects--all, all, all.
Let them loiter in pleasure, or toilfully spin,
I gather them in! I gather them in!

"I gather them in--and their final rest,
Is here, down here, in the earth's dark breast"--
And the sexton ceased--for the funeral train
Wound mutely over the solemn plain;
And I said to my heart--when time is told,
A mightier voice than that sexton's old,
Will sound o'er the last trump's dreadful din--
"I gather them in! I gather them in!"
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Smith, Elder & Co., announce "The Shelley Memorials,"
edited by the wife of the poet's son. They are intended to
counteract the injurious effects of "some recent biographies,
which contain mis-statements imperatively requiring correc-
tion." We trust that they will evince a higher and better ap-
preciation of Shelley's character and position in literature than
the poet's wife seems to have possessed, if we may judge from
the suppressions and amendments (?) in her edition of his
works.
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LITERARY COINCIDENCES---NO. 5.
------
"I never knew any man, in my life, who could not bear another's
misfortunes like a christian."--Pope's Thoughts.
"Nous avons tous assez de philosophie pour bien supporter les maux
d'autrui."--Rouchefoucauld.

"There is often a jaundice in the eyes of great men; they see
not those whom they raise, in the same colours with other men:
all whom they affect look golden to them, when the gilding is only
in their own distempered sight."--Dryden.
"All seems infected, that the infected spy
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye."--Pope.

--------"Hence even Winter fills her withered lap
With blushing fruits and plenty, not her own."--Thompson.
"Miraturque novos frondes et non sua poma."--Virgil, Georgics.

---------"The worthy and the good may say
Striking their pensive bosoms, here lies Gay."
[Pope's Epitaph on Gay.
"Quaedam inquit, nudum sinuos reducens
En, hic in roseis latet papillis."--Catullus, Carm. 52.

"Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through and make a lucid interval."--McFlecknoe.
"------For then a ray of reason stole
Half through the solid darkness of his soul."--Dunciad.

"Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby, there lay,
But loads of Shadwell intercept the way."--McFlecknoe.
"Round him much embryo, much abortion lay
Much future ode and abdicated play."--Dunciad.
"Echoes from Nuisance-Alley, 'Shadwell!' call
And 'Shadwell!' they resound from Aston-Hall."--McFlecknoe.

"God save King Cibber! mounts from every note:
Familiar White 'God save King Colley!' cries,
'God save King Colley!' Drury Lane replies."--Dunciad.
"Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt;
'Tis like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt."--Goldsmith.

Sorbiere complained thus of his old friend, who, when he became
Pope (Clement IX.,) sent him the most unsubstantial presents, omit-
ing all solid benefits:
"Il envoie des confitures a un homme qui manque de pain--des ja-
bots a celui que n'a pas de chemise."

The following series of passages present some very clear coin-
cidences:
"Quel chimére donc est l'homme! quel chaos de confusion! quelle
contradiction! soi-disant juge de tout; et cependant un foible ver
de la terre; le dépôt et le conservateur de tout vérité; et cependant
un amas d'incertitude et de faussetés!--enfin, la gloire et la honte
de l'univers."--Pascal.

"Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great;
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err:
Alike in ignorance (his reason such)
Whether to think too little or too much;
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise or half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of Truth, in endless error hurled;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!"--Essay on Man.

"How weak is Man to Reason's judging eye!
Born in one instand, in the next we die!
Part, mortal clay--and part, etherial fire;
Too proud to creep--too humble to aspire."--Rich. West.

"Is there a whim-inspired fool,
O'er fast for thought, o'er hot for rule,
O'er blate to seek, o'er proud to snool,
Let him draw near;" etc.--Burns; Epitaph for himself.

How beautiful is all this visible world!
How glorious, in its action and itself!
But we--who boast ourselves its masters--we,
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit
To sink or soar--with our mixed essence make
A conflict of its elements, and breathe
The breath of degradation and of pride,
Contending with low wants and lofty will,
'Till our morality predominates,
And men are--what they own not to themselves,
And trust not to each other."--Byron; Manfred.
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RATHER WARM.--Baron Alderson, in a letter to his son,
says: "I have been obliged at last to send for Sir Benjamin
Brodie, to see me for my sciatica, and to-day, by his order, I
have been stewed alive in a vapor-bath. Dreadfully hot, I can
tell you--140 degrees, while a hot bath is only 98 degrees.--
Yet it was not unpleasant after all; for hot air does not burn
like hot water, as it communicates its heat gradually to you,
air being what they call a bad conductor of heat. So by the
time the hot air makes you warm, a perspiration breaks out and
cools you again. People have been known to bear 400 degrees
of heat without much inconvenience. Sir Francis Chantrey
told me once he had gone into the oven where he baked his
molds, which is heated by a nearly red-hot place at the bottom.
He wore thick wooden shoes to protect his feet, and a flannel
dress, and was able to bear it very well. That was a heat that
would have baked a pie, and yet a man alive would not be
heated much above blood heat, or about 100 degrees. Is not
this curious? Life is able, you see, to bear heat which would
roast a dead body."
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