TALBOYS.
Against Venus and Juno combined, alas! for poor Dido at last!
SEWARD.
Æneas was in her eyes what Othello was in Desdemona's. No Desdemona she—no "gentle Lady"—nor was Virgil a Shakspeare. Yet those remonstrances—and that raving—and that suicide!
TALBOYS.
Ay, Dan Virgil feared not to put the condemnation of his Hero into those lips of fire—to let her winged curses pursue the Pious Perfidious as he puts to sea. But what is truth—passion—nature from the reproachful and raving—the tender and the truculent—the repentant and the revengeful—the true and the false Dido—for she had forgot and she remembers Sychæus—when cut up into bits of bad law, and framed into an Indictment through which the Junior Jehu at the Scottish Bar might drive a Coach and Six!
SEWARD.
But he forsook her! He did—and in obedience to the will of heaven. Throughout the whole of his Tale of Troy, at that fatal banquet, he tells her whither, and to what fated region, the fleet is bound—he is not sailing under scaled orders—Dido hears the Hero's destiny from the lips of Mœstissimus Hector, from the lips of Creusa's Shade. But Dido is deaf to all those solemn enunciations—none so deaf as those who will not hear; the Likeness of Ascanius lying-by her on her Royal Couch fired her vital blood—and she already is so insane as to dream of lying ere long on that God-like breast. He had forgot—and he remembers his duty—yes—his duty; according to the Creed of his country—of the whole heathen world—in deserting Dido, he obeyed the Gods.
TALBOYS.
He sneaked away! says Knight. Go he must—would it have been more heroic to set fire to the Town, and embark in the General Illumination?