PREFACE то HOMER'S ILIA D. H OMER is univerfally allowed to have had the greatest Invention of any writer whatever. The praife of Judgment Virgil has juftly contefted with him, and others may have their pretenfions as to particular excellencies; but his Invention remains yet unrival'd. Nor is it a wonder if he has ever been acknowledged the greatest of poets, who most excelled in that which is the very foundation of poetry. It is the invention that in different degrees diftinguishes all great Genius's: The utmost stretch of human ftudy, learning, and industry, which mafter every thing befides, can never attain to this. It furnishes Art with all her materials, and without it, Judgment itself can at best but steal wifely: For Art is only like a prudent fteward that lives on managing the riches of Nature. Whatever praises may be given to works of Judgment, there is not even a fingle beauty in them, to which the Invention must not contribute. As in the most regular gardens, Art can only reduce the beauties of Nature to more regularity, and fuch a figure, which the common eye may better take in, and is therefore more entertained with. And perhaps the reason why common Criticks are inclined to prefer a judicious and methodical genius to a great and fruitful one, is, because because they find it easier for themselves to pursue their obfervations through an uniform and bounded walk of Art, than to comprehend the vast and various extent of Nature. Our author's work is a wild paradife, where if we cannot fee all the beauties fo diftinctly as in an ordered garden, it is only because the number of them is infinitely greater. 'Tis like a copious nurfery which contains the feeds and first productions of every kind, out of which those who followed him have but felected fome particular plants, each according to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If fome things are too luxuriant, it is owing to the richness of the foil; and if others are not arrived to perfection or maturity, it is only because they are over-run and oppreft by those of a stronger na ture. It is to the ftrength of this amazing invention we are to attribute that unequall'd fire and rapture, which is fo forcible in Homer, that no man of a true poetical spirit is mafter of himself while he reads him. What he writes, is of the moft animated nature imaginable; every thing moves, every thing lives, and is put in action. If a council be called, or a battle fought, you are not coldly informed of what was faid or done as from a third perfon; the reader is hurried out of himself by the force of the Poet's imagination, and turns in one place to a hearer, in another to a spectator. The course of his verfes refembles that of the army he describes, Οἱ δ' άρ' ἴσαν, ωσεί τε περὶ χθῶν πᾶσα νέμοιο· They pour along like a fire that fweeps the whole earth before it. 'Tis however remarkable, that his fancy, which is every where vigorous, is not discovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its fulleft fplendor: It grows in the progrefs both up on on himself and others, and becomes on fire like a chariot-wheel, by its own rapidity. Exact difpofition, just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers, may have been found in a thoufand; but this poetical fire, this Vivida vis animi, in a very few. Even in works where all those are imperfect or neglected, this can over-power criticism, and make us admire even while we difapprove. Nay, where this appears, though attended with abfurdities, it brightens all the rubbish about it, till we fee nothing but its own fplendor. This Fire is difcerned in Virgil, but difcerned as through a glafs, reflected from Homer, more fhining than fierce, but every where equal and conftant: In Lucan and Statius, it burfts out in fudden, fhort, and interrupted flashes: In Milton it glows like a furnace kept up to an uncommon ardor by the force of art: In Shakespear, it ftrikes before we are aware, like an accidental fire from heaven: But in Homer, and in him only, it burns every where clearly, and every where irrefiftibly. I fhall here endeavour to fhow, how this vaft Invention exerts itself in a manner fuperior to that of any poet, through all the main conftituent parts of his work, as it is the great and peculiar charac teristic which distinguishes him from all other authors. This ftrong and ruling faculty was like a powerful ftar, which in the violence of its courfe, drew all things within its vortex. It seemed not enough to have taken in the whole circle of arts, and the whole compafs of nature to fupply his maxims and reflections; all the inward paffions and affections of mankind, to furnifh his characters; and all the outward forms and images of things for his descriptions; but wanting yet an ampler sphere to expatiate in, he opened a new and boundless walk for his imagination, and created a world for himself himself in the invention of Fable. That which Ariftotle calls the Soul of poetry, was first breathed into it by Homer. I fhall begin with confidering him in this part, as it is naturally the first, and I fpeak of it both as it means the defign of a poem, and as it is taken for fiction. Fable may be divided into the probable, the allegorical, and the marvellous. The probable fable is the recital of fuch actions as though they did not happen, yet might, in the common courfe of nature: Or of fuch as though they did, become fables by the additional epifodes and manner of telling them. Of this fort is the main story of an Epic poem, the return of Ulyffes, the fettlement of the Trojans in Italy, or the like. That of the Iliad is the anger of Achilles, the moft fhort and fingle fubject that ever was chosen by any Poet. Yet this he has fupplied with a vafter variety of incidents and events, and crouded with a greater number of councils, fpeeches, battles, and episodes of all kinds, than are to be found even in those poems whose schemes are of the utmost latitude and irregularity. The action is hurried on with the most vehement fpirit, and its whole duration employs not so much as fifty days. Virgil, for want of fo warm a genius, aided himself by taking in a more extenfive fubject, as well as a greater length of time, and contracting the defign of both Homer's poems into one, which is yet but a fourth part as large as his. The other Epic Poets have used the fame practice, but generally carry'd it fo far as to fuperinduce a multiplicity of fables, deftroy the unity of action, and lose their readers in an unreafonable length of time. Nor is it only in the main defign that they have been unable to add to his invention, but they have followed him in every epi fode and part of ftory. If he has given a regular catalogue of an army, they all draw up their forces in the fame order. If he has funeral games for Patroclus, Virgil has the fame for Anchifes, and Statius (rather than omit them) destroys the unity of his action for thofe of Archemorus. If Ulyffes vifit the fhades, the Æneas of Virgil and Scipio of Silius are fent after him. If he be detained from his return by the allurements of Calypfo, fo is Æneas by Dido, and Rinaldo by Armida. If Achilles be abfent from the army on the fcore of a quarrel through half the poem, Rinaldo must abfent himself just as long, on the like account. If he gives his hero a fuit of celestial armour, Virgil and Tafso make the fame present to theirs. Virgil has not only obferved this clofe imitation of Homer, but where he had not led the way, fupplied the want from other Greek authors. Thus the ftory of Sinon and the taking of Troy was copied (fays Macrobius) almoft word for word from Pifander, as the Loves of Dido and Æneas are taken from those of Medea and Jafon in Apollonius, and feveral others in the fame manner. To proceed to the allegorical fable: If we reflect upon those innumerable knowledges, thofe fecrets of nature and phyfical philofophy, which Homer is generally fuppofed to have wrapp'd up in his allegories, what a new and ample scene of wonder may this confideration afford us? How fertile will that imagination appear, which was able to clothe all the properties of elements, the qualifications of the mind, the virtues and vices, in forms and perfons; and to introduce them into actions agreeable to the nature of the things they fhadowed? This is a field in which no fucceeding poets could difpute with Homer; and whatever commendations have been allowed them on this head, are by no means for their invention in having enlarged his circle, but for their judgment in having contracted it, For when the mode of learn ing |