Note 43 — TO THE MOST HONOURABLE JOHN, LORD MARQUIS OF NORMANBY, EARL OF MULGRAVE,[28] &c. AND KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER.

In the following comparison, our author assumes, that the "Iliad" was actually written with a view to its moral tendency. But considering the matter fairly, and without prejudice, there is as much reason for supposing, that Shakespeare had a great public purpose to accomplish in every one of his plays; which we know were only written to fill the Bull or the Fortune theatres, as the songs of Homer were recited, minstrel-like, for the supply of his daily wants. But both these gifted men had an intuitive knowledge of human nature, which cannot be justly described, without an evident, though undesigned, moral pressing itself on the hearers. Virgil's poem, however, had certainly a political, if not a moral purpose; for, while it gratified the nobles of the court of Augustus, by deducing their descent from the followers of Æneas, it tamed their republican spirit, by describing the monarchy of the emperor, not as an usurpation, but a hereditary, though interrupted succession, from the wandering Prince of Troy.