Note II.
Only one daughter heirs my crown and state.—P. 439.
This has seemed to some an odd passage; that a king should offer his daughter and heir to a stranger prince, and a wanderer, before he had seen him, and when he had only heard of his arrival on his coasts. But these critics have not well considered the simplicity of former times, when the heroines almost courted the marriage of illustrious men. Yet Virgil here observes the rule of decency: Lavinia offers not herself; it is Latinus, who propounds the match; and he had been foretold, both by an augur and an oracle, that he should have a foreign son-in-law, who was also a hero;—fathers, in those ancient ages, considering birth and virtue, more than fortune, in the placing of their daughters; which I could prove by various examples; the contrary of which being now practised, I dare not say in our nation, but in France, has not a little darkened the lustre of their nobility. That Lavinia was averse to this marriage, and for what reason, I shall prove in its proper place.