Behaviour, is supported in that Deportment by what we may call true Courage.  Alas, it is not so easy a thing to be a brave Man as the unthinking part of Mankind imagine:  To dare, is not all that there is in it.  The Privateer we were just now talking of, had boldness enough to attack his Enemy, but not Greatness of Mind enough to admire the same Quality exerted by that Enemy in defending himself.  Thus his base and little Mind was wholly taken up in the sordid regard to the Prize, of which he failed, and the damage done to his own Vessel; and therefore he used an honest Man, who defended his own from him, in the Manner as he would a Thief that should rob him.

He was equally disappointed, and had not Spirit enough to consider that one Case would be Laudable and the other Criminal.  Malice, Rancour, Hatred, Vengeance, are what tear the Breasts of mean Men in Fight; but Fame, Glory, Conquests, Desires of Opportunities to pardon and oblige their Opposers, are what glow in the Minds of the Gallant.  The Captain ended his Discourse with a Specimen of his Book-Learning; and gave us to understand that he had read a French Author on the Subject of Justness in point of Gallantry.  I love, said Mr. SENTREY, a Critick who mixes the Rules of Life with Annotations upon Writers.  My Author, added he, in his Discourse upon Epick Poem, takes occasion to speak of the same Quality of Courage drawn in the two different Characters of Turnus and AEneas:  He makes Courage the chief and greatest Ornament of Turnus; but in AEneas there are many others which out-shine it, amongst the rest that of Piety.  Turnus is therefore all along painted by the Poet full of Ostentation, his Language haughty and vain glorious, as placing his Honour in the Manifestation of his Valour; AEneas speaks little, is slow to Action; and shows only a sort of defensive Courage.  If Equipage and Address make Turnus appear more couragious than AEneas, Conduct and Success prove AEneas more valiant than Turnus.

T.

* * * * *

No. 351.  Saturday, April 12, 1712.  Addison.

  In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit.

  Virg.

If we look into the three great Heroick Poems which have appeared in the World, we may observe that they are built upon very slight Foundations.  Homer lived near 300 Years after the Trojan War; and, as the writing of History was not then in use among the Greeks, we may very well suppose, that the Tradition of Achilles and Ulysses had brought down but very few particulars to his Knowledge; though there is no question but he has wrought into his two Poems such of their remarkable Adventures, as were still talked of among his Contemporaries.

The Story of AEneas, on which Virgil founded his Poem, was likewise very bare of Circumstances, and by that means afforded him an Opportunity of embellishing it with Fiction, and giving a full range to his own Invention.  We find, however, that he has interwoven, in the course of his Fable, the principal Particulars, which were generally believed among the Romans, of AEneas his Voyage and Settlement in Italy.  The Reader may find an Abridgment of the whole Story as collected out of the ancient Historians, and as it was received among the Romans, in Dionysius Halicarnasseus [1].