There are indeed several very Natural Incidents on the Part of Ascanius; as that of Dido cannot be sufficiently admired.  I do not see any thing new or particular in Turnus. Pallas and Evander are [remote] Copies of Hector and Priam, as Lausus and Mezentius are almost Parallels to Pallas and Evander.  The Characters of Nisus and Eurialus are beautiful, but common. [We must not forget the Parts of Sinon, Camilla, and some few others, which are fine Improvements on the Greek Poet.] In short, there is neither that Variety nor Novelty in the Persons of the AEneid, which we meet with in those of the Iliad.

If we look into the Characters of Milton, we shall find that he has introduced all the Variety [his Fable [4]] was capable of receiving.  The whole Species of Mankind was in two Persons at the Time to which the Subject of his Poem is confined.  We have, however, four distinct Characters in these two Persons.  We see Man and Woman in the highest Innocence and Perfection, and in the most abject State of Guilt and Infirmity.  The two last Characters are, indeed, very common and obvious, but the two first are not only more magnificent, but more new [5] than any Characters either in Virgil or Homer, or indeed in the whole Circle of Nature.

Milton was so sensible of this Defect in the Subject of his Poem, and of the few Characters it would afford him, that he has brought into it two Actors of a Shadowy and Fictitious Nature, in the Persons of Sin and Death, [6] by which means he has [wrought into [7]] the Body of his Fable a very beautiful and well-invented Allegory.  But notwithstanding the Fineness of this Allegory may attone for it in some measure; I cannot think that Persons of such a Chymerical Existence are proper Actors in an Epic Poem; because there is not that measure of Probability annexed to them, which is requisite in Writings of this kind, [as I shall shew more at large hereafter].

Virgil has, indeed, admitted Fame as an Actress in the AEneid, but the Part she acts is very short, and none of the most admired Circumstances in that Divine Work.  We find in Mock-Heroic Poems, particularly in the Dispensary and the Lutrin [8] several Allegorical Persons of this Nature which are very beautiful in those Compositions, and may, perhaps, be used as an Argument, that the Authors of them were of Opinion, [such [9]] Characters might have a Place in an Epic Work.  For my own part, I should be glad the Reader would think so, for the sake of the Poem I am now examining, and must further add, that if such empty unsubstantial Beings may be ever made use of on this Occasion, never were any more nicely imagined, and employed in more proper Actions, than those of which I am now speaking.