and self-accusations at the sight of Menelaus, her upbraiding Paris for his cowardice, and, at the same time, her returning fondness for him, exhibit the most striking features of that mixed female character, which we partly condemn, and partly pity. Homer never introduces her without making her say something to move our compassion: while, at the same time, he takes care to contrast her character with that of a virtuous matron, in the chaste and tender Andromache. Paris himself, the author of all the mischief, is characterized with the utmost propriety. He is, as we should expect him, a mixture of gallantry and effeminacy. He retreats from Menelaus, on his first appearance; but, immediately afterwards, enters into single combat with him. He is a great master of civility, remarkably courteous in his speeches; and receives all the reproofs of his brother Hector with modesty and deference. He is described as a person of elegance and taste. He was the architect of his own palace. He is, in the sixth book, found by Hector, burnishing and dressing up his armour; and issues forth to battle with a peculiar gayety and ostentation of appearance, which is illustrated by one of the finest comparisons in all the Iliad, that of the horse prancing to the river. Homer has been blamed for making his hero Achilles of too brutal and unamiable a character. But I am inclined to think, that injustice is commonly done to Achilles upon the credit of two lines of Horace, who has certainly overloaded his character. Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer, Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis. A. P. 121. Achilles is passionate, indeed, to a great degree; but he is far from being a contemner of laws and justice. In the contest with Agamemnon, though he carries it on with too much heat, yet he has reason on his side. He was notoriously wronged; but he submits, and resigns Briseis peaceably, when the heralds come to demand her; only he will fight no longer under the command of a leader who had affronted him. Besides his wonderful bravery and contempt of death, he has several other qualities of a hero. He is open and sincere. He loves his subjects, and respects the gods. He is distinguished by strong friendships and attachments; he is throughout, high-spirited, gallant, and honourable; and allowing for a degree of ferocity which belonged to the times, and enters into the characters of most of Homer's heroes, he is, upon the whole, abundantly fitted to raise high admiration, though not pure esteem. Under the head of characters, Homer's gods, or his machinery, according to the critical term, come under consideration. The gods make a great figure in the Iliad; much greater indeed than they do in the Eneid, or in any other epic poem ; and hence Homer has become the standard of poetic theology. Concerning machinery in general, I delivered my sentiments in the former lecture. Concerning Homer's machinery, in particular, we must observe, that it was not his own invention. Like every other good poet, he unquestionably followed the traditions of his country. The age of the Trojan war approached the age of the gods and de mi-gods in Greece. Several of the heroes concerned in that war were reputed to be the children of these gods. Of course, the traditionary tales relating to them, and to the exploits of that age, were blended with the fables of the deities. These popular legends Homer very properly adopted; though it is perfectly absurd to infer from this, that therefore poets arising in succeeding ages, and writing on quite different subjects, are obliged to follow the same system of machinery. In the hands of Homer, it produces, on the whole, a noble effect; it is always gay and amusing; often lofty and magnificent. It introduces into his poem a great number of personages, almost as much distinguished by characters as his human actors. It diversifies his battles greatly, by the intervention of the gods; and by frequently shifting the scene from earth to heaven, it gives an agreeable relief to the mind, in the midst of so much blood and slaughter. Homer's gods, it must be confessed, though they be always lively and animated figures, yet sometimes want dignity. The conjugal contentions between Juno and Jupiter, with which he entertains us, and the indecent squabbles he describes among the inferior deities, according as they take different sides with the contending parties, would be very improper models for any modern poet to imitate. In apology for Homer, however, it must be remembered, that according to the fables of those days, the gods are but one remove above the condition of men. They have all the human passions. They drink and feast, and are vulnerable like men; they have children and kinsmen in the opposite armies; and except that they are immortal, that they have houses on the top of Olympus, and winged chariots, in which they are often flying down to earth, and then reascending, in order to feast on nectar and ambrosia; they are in truth no higher beings than the human heroes, and therefore very fit to take part in their contentions. At the same time, though Homer so frequently degrades his divinities, yet he knows how to make them appear, in some conjunctures, with the most awful majesty. Jupiter, the father of gods and men, is, for the most part, introduced with great dignity; and several of the most sublime conceptions in the Iliad are founded on the appearances of Neptune, Minerva, and Apollo, on great occasions. With regard to Homer's style and manner of writing, it is easy, natural, and in the highest degree animated. It will be admired by such only as relish ancient simplicity, and can make allowance for certain negligences and repetitions, which greater refinement in the art of writing has taught succeeding, though far inferior, poets to avoid. For Homer is the most simple in his style of all the great poets, and resembles most the style of the poetical parts of the Old Testament. They can have no conception of his manner, who are acquainted with him in Mr. Pope's translation only. An excellent poetical performance that translation is, and faithful in the main to the original. In some places, it may be thought to have even improved Homer. It has certainly softened some of his rudenesses, and added delicacy and grace to some of his sentiments. But with al, it is no other than Homer modernized. In the midst of the elegance and luxuriancy of Mr. Pope's language, we lose sight of the old bard's simplicity. I know indeed no author, to whom it is more difficult to do justice in a translation, than Homer. As the plainness of his diction, were it literally rendered, would often appear flat in any modern language; so, in the midst of that plainness, and not a little heightened by it, there are every where breaking forth upon us flashes of native fire, of sublimity and beauty, which hardly any language, except his own, could preserve. His versification has been universally acknowledged to be uncommonly melodious; and to carry, beyond that of any poet, a resemblance in the sound to the sense and meaning. In narration, Homer is, at all times, remarkably concise, which renders him lively and agreeable; though, in his speeches, as I have before admitted, sometimes tedious. He is every where descriptive; and descriptive by means of those well chosen particulars which form the excellency of description. Virgil gives us the nod of Jupiter with great magnificence: Annuit, et totum nutu tremefecit Olympum. IX. 106. But Homer, in describing the same thing, gives us the sable eyebrows of Jupiter bent, and his ambrosial curls shaken, at the moment when he gives the nod; and thereby renders the figure more natural and lively. Whenever he seeks to draw our attention to some interesting object, he particularizes it so happily, as to paint it in a manner to our sight. The shot of Pandarus's arrow, which broke the truce between the two armies, as related in the fourth book, may be given for an instance; and above all, the admirable interview of Hector with Andromache, in the sixth book; where all the circumstances of conjugal and parental tenderness, the child affrighted with the view of his father's helmet and crest, and clinging to the nurse; Hector putting off his helmet, taking the child into his arms, and offering up a prayer for him to the gods; Andromache receiving back the child with a smile of pleasure, and at the same instant bursting into tears, daxpuósv yeλárada, as it is finely expressed in the original, form the most natural and affecting picture that can possibly be imagined. In the description of battles, Homer particularly excels. He works up the hurry, the terror, and confusion of them in so masterly a manner, as to place the reader in the very midst of the engagement. It is here, that the fire of his genius is most highly displayed; insomuch that Virgil's battles, and indeed those of most other poets, are cold and inanimate in comparison of Homer's. With regard to similes, no poet abounds so much with them. Se veral of them are beyond doubt extremely beautiful: such as those of the fires in the Trojan camp compared to the moon and stars by night; Paris going forth to battle, to the war-horse prancing to the river; and Euphorbus slain, to the flowering shrub cut down by a sudden blast all which are among the finest poetical passages are any where to be found. I am not, however, of opinion that that Homer's comparisons, taken in general, are his greatest beauties. They come too thick upon us; and often interrupt the train of his narration or description. The resemblance on which they are founded, is sometimes not clear; and the objects whence they are taken are too uniform. His lions, bulls, eagles, and herds of sheep, recur too frequently; and the allusions in some of his similes, even after the allowances that are to be made for ancient manners, must be admitted to be debasing.* My observations, hitherto, have been made upon the Iliad only It is necessary to take some notice of the Odyssey also. Longinus's criticism upon it is not without foundation, that Homer may in this poem be compared to the setting sun, whose grandeur still remains without the heat of his meridian beams. It wants the vigour and sublimity of the Iliad; yet, at the same time, possesses so many beauties, as to be justly entitled to high praise. It is a very amusing poem, and has much greater variety than the Iliad; it contains many interesting stories, and beautiful descriptions. We see every where the same descriptive and dramatic genius, and the same fertility of invention that appears in the other work. It descends indeed from the dignity of gods, and heroes, and warlike achievements; but in recompense we have more pleasing pictures of ancient manners. Instead of that ferocity which reigns in the Iliad, the Odyssey presents us with the most amiable images of hospitality and humanity; entertains us with many a wonderful adventure, and many a landscape of nature; and instructs us by a constant vein of morality and virtue, which runs through the poem. At the same time there are some defects which must be acknowledged in the Odyssey. Many scenes in it fall below the majesty which we naturally expect in an epic poem. The last twelve books, after Ulysses is landed in Ithaca, are, in several parts, tedious and languid; and though the discovery which Ulysses makes of himself to his nurse, Euryclea, and his interview with Penelope, before she knows him, in the nineteenth book, are tender and affecting, yet *The severest critic upon Homer in modern times, M. la Motte, admits all that his admirers urge for the superiority of his genius and talents as a poet: “C'étoit un génie naturellement poëtique, ami des fables et des merveilleux, et porté en général à l'imitation, soit des objets de la nature, soit des sentimens et des actions des hommes. Il avoit l'esprit vaste et fécond; plus élevé que délicat, plus naturel qu'ingénieux, et plus amoureux de l'abondance que du choix Il a saisi, par une supériorite de goût, les premières idées de l'éloquence dans toutes les genres; il a parlé le langage de toutes les passions; et il a du moins ouvert aux écrivains qui doivent le suivre une infinité de routes, qu'il ne restoit plus qu'à applanir. Il y a apparence qu'en quelques temps qu' Homère eût vécu, il eût été, du moins, le plus grand poëte de son pays et à ne le prendre que dans ce sens, on peut dire, qu'il est le maitre de ceux mêmes qui l'ont surpassé."-Discours sur Homère. Euvres de la Motte, tome ii. After these high praises of the author, he indeed endeavours to bring the merit of the Iliad very low. But his principal objections turn on the debasing ideas which are there given of the gods, the gross characters and manners of the heroes, and the imperfect morality of the sentiments; which, as Voltaire observes, is like accusing a painter for having drawn his figures in the dress of the times. Homer painted his gods such as popular tradition then represented them; and describes such characters and sentiments, as he found among those with whom he lived. the poet does not seem happy in the great anagnorisis, or the discovery of Ulysses to Penelope. She is too cautious and distrustful, and we are disappointed of the surprise of joy, which we expected on that high occasion. After having said so much of the father of epic poetry, it is now time to proceed to Virgil, who has a character clearly marked, and quite distinct from that of Homer. As the distinguishing excellencies of the Iliad are simplicity and fire; those of the Eneid are, elegance and tenderness. Virgil is, beyond doubt, less animated and less sublime than Homer; but, to counterbalance this, he has fewer negligences, greater variety, and supports more of a correct and regular dignity, throughout his work. When we begin to read the Iliad, we find ourselves in the region of the most remote, and even unrefined antiquity. When we open the Æneid, we discover all the correctness, and the improvements, of the Augustan age. We meet with no contentions of heroes about a female slave, no violent scolding, nor abusive language; but the poem opens with the utmost magnificence; with Juno, forming designs for preventing Æneas's establishment in Italy, and Æneas himself presented to us with all his fleet, in the middle of a storm, which is described in the highest style of poetry. The subject of the Eneid is extremely happy; still more so, in my opinion, than either of Homer's poems. As nothing could be more noble nor carry more of epic dignity, so nothing could be more flattering and interesting to the Roman people, than Virgil's deriving the origin of their state from so famous a hero as Æneas. The object was splendid in itself; it gave the poet a theme, taken from the ancient traditionary history of his own country; it allowed him to connect his subject with Homer's stories, and to adopt all his mythology; it afforded him the opportunity of frequently glancing at all the future great exploits of the Romans, and of describing Italy, and the very territory of Rome, in its ancient and fabulous state. The establishment of Æneas, constantly traversed by Juno, leads to a great diversity of events, of voyages, and wars; and furnishes a proper intermixture of the incidents of peace with martial exploits. Upon the whole, I believe, there is no where to be found so complete a model of an epic fable, or story, as Virgil's Æneid. I see no foundation for the opinion, entertained by some critics, that the Æneid is to be considered as an allegorical poem, which carries a constant reference to the character and reign of Augustus Cæsar; or, that Virgil's main design in composing the Æneid, was to reconcile the Romans to the government of that prince, who is supposed to be shadowed out under the character of Æneas. Virgil, indeed, like the other poets of that age, takes every opportunity which his subject affords him, of paying court to Augustus. But, to imagine that he carried a political plan in his view, through the whole poem, appears to me no more than a fanciful refinement. He had sufficient * As particularly in that noted passage of the sixth book, 1. 792. |