pofition of particular paffages in them, and form, ing a judgment from thence of their merit upon the whole. We ought to have a certain knowledge of the principal character and diftinguishing excellence of each: It is in that we are to confider him, and in proportion to his degree in that we are to admire him. No author or man ever excelled all the world in more than one faculty; and as Homer has done this in invention, Virgil has in judgment. Not that we are to think Homer wanted judgment, because Virgil had it in a more eminent degree; or that Virgil wanted invention, becaufe Homer poffeft a larger fhare of it: Each of these great authors had more of both than perhaps any man besides, and are only faid to have lefs in comparison with one another. Homer was the

greater genius, Virgil the better artift. 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 boundlefs overflow; Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a gentle and conftant ftream. When we behold their battles, methinks the two Poets refemble the Heroes they celebrate: Homer, boundless and irrefiftible as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines more and more as the tumult increases; Virgil, calmly daring like Æneas, appears undifturbed in the midft 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 benevolence, counselling with the Gods, laying plans for empires, and regularly ordering his whole creation.

+4

But

But after all, it is with great parts as with great virtues, they naturally border on fome imperfection; and it is often hard to diftinguish exactly where the virtue ends, or the fault begins. As prudence may fometimes fink to suspicion, fo may a great judgment decline to coldness; and as magnanimity may run up to profufion or extravagance, fo may a great invention to redundancy or wildness. If we look upon Homer in this view, we shall perceive the chief objections against him to proceed from so noble a cause as the excefs of this faculty.

Among these we may reckon fome of his marvellous fictions, upon which fo much criticifm 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 Speaking horses, and Virgil his myrtles diftilling blood, where the latter has not fo much as contrived the easy intervention of a Deity to fave the probability.

It is owing to the fame vaft invention, that his Similes 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 circumftance upon which the comparison is grounded: It runs out into embellifhments of additional images, which however are fo managed 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 profpects. The fame will account

for

for his manner of heaping a number of comparifons together in one breath, when his fancy fuggefted to him at once fo many various and corref pondent images. The reader will eafily extend this obfervation to more objections of the fame kind.

If there are others which seem rather to charge him with a defect or narrownefs of genius, than an excess of it; thofe feeming defects will be found upon examination to proceed wholly from the nature of the times he lived 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* Essay: But I must here fpeak a word of the latter, as it is a point generally carried 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 so much "the more excellent, as they are more contrary "to ours." Who can be fo prejudiced in their fa vour as to magnify the felicity of those ages, when a fpirit of revenge and cruelty, joined with the practice of rapine and robbery, reign'd thro' the world; when no mercy was fhown but for the fake of lucre, when the greatest Princes were put to the sword, and their wives and daughters made flaves and concubines? On the other fide, I would not be fo delicate as thofe modern critics, who are shocked at the fervile offices and mean employments in which we fometimes fee the Heroes of Homer engaged. There is a pleasure in taking a view of that fimplicity in oppofition to the luxury of fucceeding ages, in beholding Monarchs without their guards, Princes tending their flocks, and

See the Articles of Theology and Morality, in the third part of the Effay.

† Preface to her Homer.

Princefes

Princeffes drawing water from the fprings. Wher 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 no more; that they are stepping almoft three thoufand years back into the remoteft Antiquity, and entertaining themselves with a clear and furprising vifion of things no where elfe to be found, the only true mirrour of that ancient world. By this means alone their greatest obftacles will vanifh; and what ufually creates their diflike, will become a fatisfaction.

This confideration may further serve to answer for the conftant ufe of the fame epithets to his Gods and Heroes, fuch as the far-darting Phoebus, the blue-ey'd Pallas, the swift-footed Achilles, etc. 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 folemn devotions in which they were ufed: they were a fort of attributes with which it was a matter of religion to saJute 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 Surnames, and repeated as fuch ; for the Greeks having no names derived from their fathers, were obliged to add fome other diftinction of each perfon; either naming his parents exprefly, or his place of birth, profeffion, or the like: As Alexander the fon of Philip, Herodotus of Halicarnaffus, Diogenes the Cynic, etc. mer therefore complying with the custom of his country, ufed fuch diftinctive additions as better agreed with poetry. And indeed we have fome

Ho

thing parallel to these in modern times, fuch as the names of Harold Harefoot, Edmund Ironfide, Edward Long-fhanks, Edward the Black Prince, etc, If yet this be thought to account better for the propriety than for the repetition, I fhall add a further conjecture. Hefiod, dividing the world into its different ages, has placed a fourth age between the brazen and the iron one, of Heroes distinct from ather men, a divine race, who fought at Thebes and Troy, are called Demi-Gods, and live by the carg 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 mentioned 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 raifed against Homer, are fuch as hardly deferve a reply, but will yet be taken notice of as they occur in the course of the work. Many have been occafioned by an injudicious endeavour to exalt Virgil; which is much the fame, as if one fhould think to raife the fuperftructure by undermining the foundation: One would imagine by the whole courfe of their parallels, that thefe Criticks never fo much as heard of Homer's having written first; a confideration which whoever compares thefe two Poets, ought to have always in his eye. Some accufe him for the fame things which they over ook or praife in the other; as when they prefer the fable and moral of the neis to thofe of the Iliad, for the fame reasons which might fet the Odyfley above the neis as that the Hero 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

* Hefiod, Op. et Dier. lib. i. y. 155, etc.

for