So when inclement winters vex the plain To the point of joining battel, and the lofty manner of offering and accepting this important and unexpected challenge, have fomething in them wonderfully pompous, and of an amusing folemnity. The fecond part, which defcribes the behaviour of Helena in this juncture, her conference with the old King and his counsellors, with the review of the heroes from the battlements, is an episode entirely of another fort, which excels in the natural and pathetick. The third consists of the ceremonies, of the oath on both fides, and the preliminaries to the combate; with the beautiful retreat of Priam, who in the tenderness of a parent withdraws from the fight of the duel: Thefe particulars detain the reader in expectation, and heighten his impatience for the fight itself. The fourth is The defcription of the duel, an exact piece of painting, where we fee every attitude, motion, and action of the combatants particularly and diftin&ly, and which concludes with a furprizing propriety, in the refcue of Paris by Venus. The machine of that Goddefs, which makes the fifth part, and whofe end is to reconcile Paris and Helena, is admirable in every circumftance; The remonftrance he holds with the Goddess, the reluctance with which the obeys her, the reproaches the cafts upon Paris, and the flattery and courtship with which he fo foon wins her over to him. Helen (the main cause of this war) was not to be made an odious character; fhe is drawn by this great mafter with the fineft ftrokes, as a frail, but not as an abandon'd creature. She has perpetual ftruggles of virtue on the one fide, and softnesses which overcome them, on the other. Our Author has been remarkably careful to tell us this whenever he but flightly names her in the foregoing part of his work, fhe is reprefented at the fame time as repentant; and it is thus we fee her at large at her first appearance in the prefent book; which is one of the shorteft of the whole Iliad, but in recompence has beauties almoft in every line, and most of them for obvious, that to acknowledge them we need only to read them. . 3. With fhouts the Trojans,] The book begins with a fine oppofition of the noise of the Trojan army to the filence of the Grecians. It was but natural to imagine this, fince the for mer To warmer feas the cranes embody'd fly, To mer was compos'd of many different nations, of various languages and ftrangers to each other; the latter were more united in their neighbourhood, and under leaders of the fame country. But as this obfervation feems particularly infifted upon by our Author (for he uses it again in the fourth book, . 486.) fo he had a farther reason for it. Plutarch, in his treatife of reading the Poets, remarks upon this distinction, as a particular credit to the military discipline of the Greeks. And feveral ancient authors tell us, it was the manner of the Barbarians to encounter with fhouts and outcries; as it continues to this day the cuftom of the Eastern nations. Perhaps thofe clamours were only to encourage their men, instead of martial inftruments. I think Sir Walter Raleigh fays, there never was a people but made ufe of fome fort of mufick in battel: Homer never mentions any in the Greek or Trojan armies, and it is fcarce to be imagined he would omit a circumstance fo poetical without fome particular reafon. The verb (w, which the modern Greeks have fince appropriated to the found of a trumpet, is ufed indifferently in our Author for other founds, as for thunder in the 21st Iliad, . 388. Aupi σάλπιγξεν μέγας ερανός. He once names the trumpet Early in a fimile, upon which Euftathius and Didymus obferve, that the use of it was known in the Poet's time, but not in that of the Trojan war. And hence we may infer that Homer was particularly careful not to confound the manners of the times he wrote of, with thofe of the times he liv'd in. .7. The cranes embody'd fly.] If wit has been truly defcrib'd to be a fimilitude in ideas, and is more excellent as that fimilitude is more furprizing; there cannot be a truer kind of wit than what is fhewn in apt comparisons, especially when compofed of fuch fubjects as having the leaft relation to each other in general, have yet fome particular that agrees exactly. Of this nature is the fimile of the cranes to the Trojan army, where the fancy of Homer flew to the remoteft part of the world for an image which no reader could have expected. But it is no lefs exact than furprizing. The likeness conlifts in two points, the noise and the orders the latter is so obfervable, M To pigmy-nations wounds and death they bring, 10 And all the war defcends upon the wing. But filent breathing rage, refolv'd, and skill'd Swift march the Greeks: the rapid duft around To thieves more grateful than the midnight (hade; While scarce the fwains their feeding flocks furvey, 20 Loft and confus'd amidst the thicken'd day: vable, as to have given fome of the ancients occafion to imagine, the embatteling of an army was firft learn'd from the clofe manner of flight of these birds. But this part of the fimile not being directly exprefs'd by the author, has been overlook'd by fome of the commentators. It may be remark'd, that Homer has generally a wonderful clofenefs in all the particulars of his comparifons, notwithstanding he takes a liberty in his expreffion of them. He feems fo fecure of the main likeness, that he makes no fcruple to play with the circumftances; fometimes by tranfpofing the order of them, fometimes by fuperadding them, and sometimes (as in this place) by neglecting them in fuch a manner, as to leave the reader to fupply them himself. For the prefent comparison, it has been taken by Virgit in the tenth book, and apply'd to the clamours of foldiers in the fame manner. Quales fub nubibus atris Strymonia dant figna grues, atque ahera tranant So So wrapt in gath'ring duft, the Grecian train As thus with glorious air and proud disdain, . 26. The beauteous Paris came, In form a God.] This is meant by the epithet reds, as has been faid in the notes on the first book, V. 169. The picture here given of Paris's air and drefs, is exactly correfpondent to his character; you fee him endeavouring to mix the fine gentleman with the warriour; and this idea of him Homer takes care to keep up, by defcribing him not without the fame regard, when he is arming to encounter Menelaus afterwards in a clofe fight, as he fhews here where he is but preluding and flourishing in the gaiety of his heart. And when he tells us, in that place, that he was in danger of being ftrangled by the ftrap of his helmet, he takes notice that it was wonines, embroider'd. So joys a lion, if the branching deer 4.37. So joys a lion if the branching deer, Or mountain goat.] The old fcholiafts refining on this fimile, will have it, that Paris is compar'd to a goat on account of his incontinence, and to a ftag for his cowardice: To this laft they make an addition which is very ludicrous, that he is also liken'd to a deer for his skill in mufick, and cite Ariftotle to prove thar animal delights in harmony, which opinion is alluded to by Mr. Waller in these lines; Here love takes ftand, and while fhe charms the ear But upon the whole, it is whimfical to imagine this compari- Thus |