The voice of criticism has unanimously fixed on this hook, along with the Fourth and Sixth, as affording the best evidence of the true greatness of Virgil. Whether or no we. believe the story told in Donatus' biography, that the poet himself chose these three books to read to Augustus as a specimen of his work, it indicates at any rate the judgment passed by antiquity; and modern opinion has not been slow to ratify the verdict.

The conception of the present book is eminently fortunate. Homer had made Ulysses tell the story of his wanderings to Alcinous, and so had supplied the canvas on which the younger artist might work: but the tale of Troy taken forms no part of the narrative of the Odyssey: it is briefly sung by a bard, whose strains move the tears of Ulysses, as the Trojan portraits at Carthage have moved those of Aeneas; but that is all. It was open to Virgil to make his hero tell the whole story of the destruction of Troy without trespassing on Homer's ground; and he seized the opportunity. The subject could not fail to be most impressive, and it is introduced with perfect propriety. Dido, it is true, knew the main incidents of the siege; but that was all the more reason why she should wish to hear them from the chief living witness on the side of Troy. Virgil too has shown his wisdom not only in what he has said, but in what he has left unsaid.