becaufe Virgil had it in a more eminent degree; or that Virgil wanted invention, becaufe Homer poffeft a larger share of it: Each of these great authors had more of both than perhaps any man befides, and are only faid to have lefs in comparifon with one another. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the better artist. In one we most admire the man, in the other the work. Homer hurries and tranfports us with a commanding impetuofity, Virgil leads us with an attractive majefty: Homer fcatters with a generous profufion, Virgil beftows with a careful magnificence: Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a fudden overflow; Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a gentle and conftant ftream. When we behold theis battels, methinks the two Poets refemble the Heroes they celebrate: Homer, boundless and irrefiftible as Achilles, bears all before him, and (hines more and more as the tumult increafes; Virgil, calmly daring like Eneas, appears undisturb'd in the midst of the action, difpofes all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. And when we look upon their machines, Homer feems like his own Jupiter in his terrors, fhaking Olympus, fcattering the lightnings, and firing the Heavens; Virgil, like the fame power in his benevo lence, counfelling with the Gods, laying plans for empires, and regularly ordering his whole creation. But after all, it is with great parts, as with great virtues, they naturally border on fome imperfection; and it is often hard to distinguish exactly where the virtue ends, or the fault begins. As prudence may fometimes fink to fufpicion, fo may a great judg ment decline to coldnefs; and as magnanimity may run up to profufion or extravagance, fo inay a great invention to redundancy or wildnefs. If we look upon Homer in this view, we fhall perceive the chief objections against him to proceed from fo noble a caufe, as the excels of this faculty. Among Among these we may reckon fome of his marvellous fictions, upon which fo much criticism has been spent, as furpaffing all the bounds of probability. Perhaps it may be with great and fuperior fouls, as with gigantick bodies, which exerting themselves with unufual ftrength, exceed what is commonly thought the due proportion of parts, to become miracles in the whole; and like the old heroes of that make, commit fomething near extravagance, amidst a series of glorious and inimitable performances. Thus Homer has his fpeaking horfes, and Virgil his myrtles diftilling blood, where the latter has not fo much as contriv'd the easy intervention of a Deity to fave the probability. It is owing to the fame vaft invention, that his fimiles have been thought too exuberant and full of circumstances. The force of this faculty is feen in nothing more, than in its inability to confine itself to that fingle circumstance upon which the comparison is grounded: It runs out into embellishments of additional images, which however are fo manag'd as not to overpower the main one. His fimiles are like pictures, where the principal figure has not only its proportion given agreeable to the original, but is alfo fet off with occafional ornaments and prospects. The fame will account for his manner of heaping a number of comparisons together in one breath, when his fancy fuggefted to him at once so many various and correfpondent images. The reader will eafily extend this obfervation to more objections of the fame kind. If there are others which feem rather to charge him with a defect or narrowness of genius, than an excess of it; those seeming defects will be found upon examination to proceed wholly from the nature of the times he liv'd in. Such are his groffer reprefentations of the Gods, and the vicious and imperfect manners of his Heroes, which will be treated of in the following following *Effay: But I must here speak a word of the latter, as it is a point generally carry'd into extremes, both by the cenfurers and defenders of Homer. It must be a ftrange partiality to antiquity, to think with Madam Dacier," that † those times and manners are fo much the more excellent, as they are "more contrary to ours." Who can be fo prejudiced in their favour as to magnify the felicity of those ages, when a fpirit of revenge and cruelty reign'd thro' the world, when no mercy was fhewn but for the fake of lucre, when the greatest Princes were put to the fword, and their wives and daughters made flaves and concubines? On the other fide, I would not be fo delicate as thofe modern criticks, who are fhock'd at the fervile offices and mean employments in which we fometimes fee the Heroes of Homer engag'd. There is a pleasure in taking a view of that fimplicity in oppofition to the luxury of succeeding ages; in beholding Monarchs without their guards, Princes tending their flocks, and Princeffes drawing water from the fprings. When we read Homer, we ought to reflect that we are reading the most ancient author in the heathen world; and those who confider him in this light, will double their pleasure in the perufal of him. Let them think they are growing acquainted with nations and people that are now ne more; that they are stepping almost three thousand years back into the remoteft antiquity, and entertaining themselves with a clear and furprizing vifion of things no where else to be found, the only authentick picture of that ancient world. By this means alone their greatest obstacles will vanish; and what ufually creates their dislike, will become a fatisfaction. See the Articles of Theology and Morality, in the third paro of the Effay. ↑ Preface to her Homer. This confideration may farther ferve to answer for the conftant ufe of the fame epithets to his Gods and Heroes, fuch as the far-darting Phoebus, the blue-ey'di Pallas, the fwift-footed Achilles, &c. which fome have cenfured as impertinent and tediously repeated. Thofe of the Gods depended upon the powers and offices then believ'd to belong to them, and had contracted a weight and veneration from the rites and folemm devotions in which they were us'd: They were a fort of attributes with which it was a matter of religion to falute them on all occafions, and which it was an irreverence to omit. As for the epithets of great men, Monf. Boileau is of opinion, that they were in the nature of Sirnames, and repeated as fuch; for the Greeks having no names deriv'd from their fathers, were oblig'd to add fome other distinction of each perfon; either naming his parents exprefly, or his place of birth, profeffion, or the like: As Alexander fon of Philip, Herodotus of Halicarnaffus, Diogenes the Cynic, &c. Homer therefore complying with the cu ftom of his country, us'd fuch diftinctive additions as better agreed with poetry. And indeed we have fomething parallel to thefe in modern times, fuch as the names of Harold Harefoot,Edmund Ironfide, Edward Long-fhanks, Edward the black-prince, &c. If yet this be thought to account better for the propriety than for the repetition, I shall add a farther conjecture. Hefiod dividing the world into its different ages, has plac'd a fourth age between the brazen and the iron one, of Heroes diftinct from other men, a divine race, who fought at Thebes and Troy, are called Demi-Gods, and live by the care of Jupiter in the islands of the blessed. Now among the divine honours which were paid them, they might have this alfo in common with the Gods, not to be mention'd without the folemnity of an epithet, and fuch as might be acceptable to them by its celebrating their families, actions, or qualities. What other cavils have been rais'd against Homer are fuch as hardly deserve a reply, but will yet be taken notice of as they occur in the courfe of the work. Many have been occafion'd by an injudicious endeavour to exalt Virgil which is much the fame, as if one fhould think to raise the fuperftructure by undermining the foundation: One would imagine by the whole course of their parallels,that these Criticks never fo much as heard of Homer's having written first; a confideration which whoever compares these two Poets ought to have always in his eye. Some accuse him for the fame things which they overlook or praise in the other; as when they prefer the fable and moral of the neis to thofe of the Iliad, for the fame reafons which might fet the Odyffes above the Æneis: as that the Heroe is a wifer man: and the action of the one more beneficial to his country than that of the other: Or elfe they blame him for not doing what he never defign'd; as because Achilles is not as good and perfect a Prince as Æneas, when the very moral of his poem requir'd a contrary character: It is thus that Rapin judges in his comparifon of Homer and Virgil. Others felect thofe particular paffages of Homer, which are not fo labour'd as fome that Virgil drew out of them: This is the whole management of Scaliger in his Poetices. Others quarrel with what they take for low and mean expreffions, fometimes thro' a false delicacy and refinement, oftner from an ignorance of the graces of the original: and then triumph in the aukwardness of their own tranflations: This is the conduct of Perault in his Parallels. Laftly, there are others, who pretending to a fairer proceeding, diftinguish between the perfonal merit of Homer, and that of his work; but when they come to align the caufes |