Behaviour is in the same manner particularized very artfully, as the Reader is prepared for it by that Account which is given of him in the Beginning of the Battle
; though I am satisfied your little Buffoon Readers (who have seen that Passage ridiculed in Hudibras) will not be able to take the Beauty of it: For which Reason I dare not so much as quote it.
Then stept a gallant Squire forth,
Witherington was his Name,
Who said, I would not have it told
To Henry our King for Shame,
That e'er my Captain fought on Foot,
And I stood looking on.
We meet with the same Heroic Sentiments in
Virgil
.
Non pudet, O Rutuli, cunctis pro talibus unam
Objectare animam? numerone an viribus æqui
Non sumus ... ?
What can be more natural or more moving than the Circumstances in which he describes the Behaviour of those Women who had lost their Husbands on this fatal Day?
Next Day did many Widows come
Their Husbands to bewail;
They washed their Wounds in brinish Tears,
But all would not prevail.
Their Bodies bath'd in purple Blood,
They bore with them away;
They kiss'd them dead a thousand Times,
When they were clad in Clay.
Thus we see how the Thoughts of this Poem, which naturally arise from the Subject, are always simple, and sometimes exquisitely noble; that the Language is often very sounding, and that the whole is written with a true poetical Spirit.