*

If he

lowed him in every epifode and part of story. 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 same for Anchises, and Statius (rather than omit them) deftroys the unity of his action for those of Archemorus. If Ulyffes visit the shades, the Æneas of Virgil and Scipio of Silius are fent after him. be detained from his return by the allurements of Calypfo, fo is Æneas by Dido, and Rinaldo by Armida. If Achilles be absent from the army on the score of a quarrel through half the poem, Rinaldo must absent himself just as long, on the like account. If he gives his hero a fuit of celeftial armour, Virgil and Taffo make the fame prefent to theirs. Virgil has not only obferved this close imitation of Homer, but where he had not led the

defect of genius. It may be true then, that Homer's plan is best, and even perfect: but the fcarcity of variation from it may evidently be occafioned by the motives now alledged. Editor.

-:" in confor

* It should have been: "If he have given mity to the construction of the succeeding fentences. And below: "If he give his hero.'

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 thofe of Medea and Jafon in Apollonius, and several 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 fupposed to have wrapped 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

*This expreffion is ambiguous and obfcure. I fuppofe he means, " and several other ftories in the fame manner." But his fyftem of punctuation, both in profe and verfe, is extremely aukward and indistinct.

+ Knowledges. Perhaps, this is the only inftance of the plural form of this fubftantive in our language. Johnfon gives no example: and it appears to me a more proper peculiarity for notice, than for imitation.

to introduce them into actions agreeable to the nature of the things they shadowed? 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 learning changed in following ages, and fcience was delivered in a plainer manner; it then became as reafonable in the more modern poets to lay it afide, as it was in Homer to make use of it. And perhaps it was no unhappy circumstance for Virgil, that there was not in his time that demand upon him of fo great an invention, as might be capable of furnishing all those allegorical parts of a poem.

The marvellous fable includes whatever is fupernatural, and especially the machines of the Gods. If Homer was not the firft who introduced the Deities (as Herodotus imagines) into the religion of Greece*, he seems the first

* The words, from "If Homer-to Greece," are fupplied from

who brought them into a fyftem of machinery for poetry, and fuch a one as makes its greatest importance and dignity. For we find those authors who have been offended at the literal notion of the Gods, conftantly laying their accufation against Homer as the chief support of it *. But whatever cause there might be to blame his machines in a philofophical or religious view, they are fo perfect in the poetic, that mankind have been ever fince contented to follow them: none have been able to enlarge the fphere of poetry beyond the limits he has fet every attempt of this nature has proved unfuccefsful; and after all the various changes of times and religions, his Gods continue to this day the Gods of poetry.

We come now to the characters of his

the first edition, and were probably wanting to the last from a mere typographical omiffion. The paffage of Herodotus, here alluded to, is extant in ii. 53. where Hefiod, however, is affociated with Homer in this circumftance.

It food in the first edition, with lefs precifion; "undoubted inventor of them."

+ Thus Addison in the 273rd Spectator:

as the

"Homer has excelled all the heroic poets that ever wrote in the

perfons, and here we shall find no author has ever drawn fo many, with fo vifible and furprizing a variety, or given us fuch lively and affecting impreffions of them. Every one has fomething fo fingularly his own, that no painter could have distinguished them more by their features, than the Poet has by their Nothing can be more exact than the distinctions he has obferved in the different degrees of virtues and vices. The fingle quality of courage is wonderfully diverfified in the feveral characters of the Iliad.

manners.

of Achilles is furious and intractable *

;

That

that

of Diomede forward, yet listening to advice

“multitude and variety of his characters.-There is scarce a speech "or action in the Iliad, which the reader may not ascribe to the 'perfon who speaks or acts, without feeing his name at the head of

" it."

* As Horace fays of this hero, in the Art of Poetry :

iracundus, inexorabilis, acer.

Editor.

And Addison, in the Spectator lately quoted, has these fimilar obfervations:

"Homer's princes are as much diftinguished by their manners, "as by their dominions; and even thofe among them, whose "characters seem wholly made up of courage, differ from one "another as to the particular kinds of courage, in which they "excell." Editor.

VOL. I.