TALBOYS.
Much gossip—of which any honest old woman, had she uttered the half of it, would have been ashamed before she had finished her tea—has been scribbled by divers male pens—stupid or spritely—on that magnificent Recital. Æneas, it has been said, by his own account, skulked during the Town Sack—and funked during the Sea Storm. And how, it has been asked, came he to lose Creusa? Pious indeed! A truly pious man, say they, does not speak of his piety—he takes care of his household gods without talking about Lares and Penates. Many critics—some not without name—have been such—unrepentant—old women. Come we to Dido.
NORTH.
Be cautious—for I fear I have been in fault myself towards Æneas for his part in that transaction.
TALBOYS.
I take the account of it from Virgil. Indeed I do not know of any scandalous chronicle of Carthage or Tyre. A Trojan Prince and a Tyrian Queen—say at once a Man and a Woman—on sudden temptation and unforeseen opportunity—Sin—and they continue to sin. As pious men as Æneas—and as kingly and heroic too, have so sinned far worse than that—yet have not been excommunicated from the fellowship of saints, kings, or heroes.
SEWARD.
To say that Æneas "seduces Dido," in the sense that Payne Knight uses the word, is a calumnious vulgarism.
TALBOYS.
And shows a sulky resolution to shut his eyes—and keep them shut.