That fine fiery fellow Chapman is seldom or never at fault, when he has to deal with a burst of simple, natural emotion. His spirit is strung to Homer's. Like two harps tuned together, when the one is struck the other responds-and 'tis noble concert. 'Tis so in this passage. A marginal note says, " Achilles gentle receipt of Ulysses, Ajax," &c.; and it is gentle for Achilles, if ever there was one on this earth, was a gentleman-not a finer one even Sir Philip Sydney-whose Life and Arcadia, by Gray of Magdalen, we this morning perused with unfaded delight. "Of the depth let every man make proof," is perhaps going a leetle too far-though, beyond doubt, Achilles did hope and trust that each hero would drain it-not to the dregs-for dregs there were nonebut till he saw his face, a smiling oblong, at the bottom. But the warmth of welcome, and the simple style of it, and the dignified sincerity of the noble host, are finely preservedand Chapman is Homer.

It is provoking to see a man wilfully going wrong, who knows perfectly well how to go right-walking with his eyes open as if they were shut-and knocking himself against stools and chairs, like a blind blunderer in a room which he has himself set in order. So doth Pope. "This short speech," saith he, "is wonderfully proper to the occasion, and to the temper of the speaker. One is under a great expectation of what Achilles will say at the sight of these heroes, and I know nothing in nature that could satisfy it, but the very thing he here accosts them with." Admirable-but why, then, Pope! oh, Pope! didst thou perversely violate thine own true sense of the perfect fitness of the original, in thy translation ? "Or strong necessity or urgent fear," is a bad line; for a stronger necessity than urgent fear, we defy you to imagine

80 or" has no office, and no point the antithesis. "Welcome, though Greeks," is the very reverse of the feeling of Achilles at that moment; he rejoiced to see them as Greeks.

"For not as foes ye came," is miserable, and its lame wretchedness is aggravated by its vile grammar. The change of tense destroys the intensity-pardon the pun. "And open every soul," is paying a poor compliment to his guests. Their souls were open; nor was Achilles the man to suspect that they were shut. Sincere as the sky himself, he saw no clouds on their brow, except of sadness, which the sunshine of his welcome would illumine or disperse. Thy friend most honours these, and these thy friend," is very pretty, indeed; but Achilles" spoke right on," and not like the Master of Ceremonies at Bath. He was no Beau Nash. How impertinent, on such an occasion, and from such a man, a compliment to himself!-Pope has now dree'd his punishment. He winceshis back is red-he is about to faint -the army-surgeon looks at his watch, nods, " enough," and the culprit is released from the halberts.

Cowper is good-very good. "On thrones with purple arras overspread," gives great grace and dignity to the reception of the heroes. They were placed as in the days of chivalry, "under the deas." Chapman supposes each hero, time about, which is fair play, to lay his lugs in the same

great bolle," with an eye to view the bottom, like the Fellows of a College, with their " cup," at the high table on day of Gaudeamus. Cowper supposes one "beaker more capacious," replenished with wine diluted less, and then out of it Patroclus filling up each hero's own particular cup to the brim, till no heeltap was detectable, and a bumper brimmed with beads, such as Ganymede gives to Jove when there is revelry in heaven. The terms in which he speaks of his visitors are full of heart, such as a hero uses when speaking of heroes. Cowper! we love thee well-and wish thou hadst not been so often and so long so unhappy in this world. But now thou art in bliss, which is more than we shall venture to say for old Newton.

Sotheby, as usual, is strong-and

"There casta goat's and sheep's extended chine,

And the huge carcass of a fatted swine-"

To the life! to the death! Nothing wanting but-oysters.

In nothing was the constitution of the heroes more enviable than its native power-of eating at all times, and without a moment's warning. Never does a meal to any distinguished individual come amiss. Their stomachs were as heroic as

their hearts, their bowels magnanimous. It cannot have been forgotten by the reader, who hangs with a watering mouth over the description of this entertainment, that about two hours before, these three heroes, Ulysses, Ajax, and old Phoenix, had made an almost enormous supper in the pavilion of Agamemnon

"There to the sated guests, the Pylian sage

Unlock'd the treasures of experienced

age.

Sated they might have been, a couple of hours ago, at the remotest, but their walk

"Along the margin of the sounding deep,"

had re-awakened their slumbering appetite. At the smell of the roasted goat, and the "huge carcass of the fatted swine"-a noble line-they feel themselves instantly sharp-setyawp, (Scotice)-and such another knife and fork, that is, finger_and thumb-we have not, except perhaps in Picardy, seen played since the Heroic age. We allude more particularly to the performances of old Phoenix.

After all, there is nothing in this wicked and weary world like-good eating" to which, if you please," whispers the pensive Public," add good drinking," and then, with that yawn of hers-" sound sleeping" -in common terms, Bed, board, and lodging." Good washing, too, is well; but not vitally essential to national comfort-witness that worthy land lying north of the Tweed. Secret gluttons alone openly abuse gormandizing-men of "steady, but not voracious appetites," alone publicly panegyrize it. We have known

at Ambrose's suppers, as illegally and unnaturally enormous, who, after dinner on a fast-day, have been under the necessity of an emetic. Good must be the digestion of that bilious bard is abhorred of all the Poet, whose genius is divine. A Muses, nor will Apollo, physician though he be, prescribe for the Blue and Yellow. Homer himself thought nothing of a saddle of mutton or a sirloin of beef. In a twinkling vanished from his trencher a boar's head. Then washed he all well

down with a glorious goblet.

There is something exceedingly satisfactory to our ear in the sound of the word-Rations. A rational repast. Mark the blind beggar devouring bread and cheese, or mouthfuls of cold rags of lean meat, by the way-side, and you see he is in heaven. He licks his shrivelled lipsfolds his withered hands-turns up his sightless eyes-mutters something not unheard afar-and catching up his crutch, hobbles away with no unsuccessful attempt at a song.Lo! a whole army-nay, two whole armies on the field of battle-dining! It requires much caution and dexterity to keep the biscuits from trundling into these pools of blood.

What a ravenous set-three courses in one-a dreadful dinner!-What tremendous thunder and lightning was that? Except our own little ship, are both fleets blown to atoms? Not at all. Merely the L'Orient. And now that the splash is over, let a double allowance of grog be served out to the merry crew of the Victory, for we are all dry as devils.-If you desire to see indeed a dinner, under the delusive name of luncheon, endeavour to get access to a popular preacher between sermons. By that porter-jug he is a deep divine. Why, a man cannot be expected to make even a tolerable appearance on the scaffold, without a couple of rolls and of eggs to breakfast on the morning of execution. Let no man be so rash as to be hanged on an empty stomach.-Then at Funerals, watched ye ever the chief-mourners! How they do tuck in the cold ham, and the pigeon-pie, and the round! Sorrow is dry; and that fact, in the philosophy of the human mind, accounts for all these empty

barrels. Never shall we forget the Funeral of the Chisholm !

To return to the Tent of Achilles. There sit Ulysses, and Ajax, and old Phoenix, hungry as hawks, though two hours ago we saw them preying in Agamemnon's Pavilion.

"The guests then feasted, and the banquet o'er,

When satiate, thirst and hunger claim'd no more," &c.

Thirst and hunger-observe-on a full stomach! And now, after that second most successful supper, when "their leathern sides are stretched almost to bursting," Ulysses has the face to say to Achilles,

"But now we seek not feasts!!"

Take the entertainment in the Tent-from first to last-and it is a noble one. Where saw ye ever Three such Men-cooks as Achilles, Patroclus, and Automedon? Lo! the son of Thetis-the goddess-bornwith the spit in his" inaccessible hands!" Redder is his fine face in the kitchen-fire, than it ever was flaming in the van of victorious battle. Is that an apron? And now from Cooks the Three Princes become Waiters. Achilles is his own Butler.

How much more state in the simplicity of these natural manners, than in the pomp of ours, where all is artificial! A modern entertainment is made mean by menials. It cannot bear description-nothing more contemptible than a horse-shoe table, however august the guests, lined with flunkies at a great city-feast. Compare with this repast of heroes, in the tent of Achilles, that given to four of the great European monarchs some dozen years ago in Guildhall, at which, if we mistake not, presided the Lord Mayor of London! It is Blackwall, we think, who says, that we read with delight all Homer's most minute descriptions of the houses, tables, and way of living of the an

cients; but, on the contrary, that when we consider our own customs, we find that our first business, when we sit down to poetise in the higher strains, is to unlearn our daily way of life; to forget our manner of sleeping, eating, and diversions; we are obliged to adopt a set of more natural manners, which, however, are foreign to us; and must be like plants raised up in hot-beds or greenhouses, in comparison with those which grow in soils, fitted by nature for such productions. Nay, so far, he continues, are we from enriching poetry with new images drawn from nature, that we find it difficult to understand the old. We live within doors, covered from nature's face; and passing our days supinely, ignorant of her beauties. We are apt to think the similies taken from her low, and the ancient manners mean or absurd. But let us be ingenuous, and confess, that while the moderns admire nothing but pomp, and can think nothing great or beautiful but what is the produce of wealth, they exclude themselves from the pleasantest and most natural images that adorn old poetry. State and form disguise men; and wealth and luxury disguise nature. Their effects in writing are answerable; a lord-mayor's show, or grand procession of any kind, is not very delicious reading, if described minutely, and at length; and great ceremony is at least equally tiresome in a poem, as in ordinary conversation. So far Blackwalland he writes like a philosophic gentleman.

But Ajax gives the sign to old Phoenix-and Ulysses, crowning his cup with wine, drinks to Achilles, and, on his legs, volunteers a speech. Let the wily orator stand there for another month or so-and then we shall listen to his eloquence, and give a fine specimen of it from Sotheby, and "the rest."