extend this obfervation to more objections of the fame kind.

If there are others which feem rather to charge him with a defect or narrowness of genius, than an excess of it; those seeming defects will be found upon examination to proceed wholly from the nature of the times he lived in. Such are his groffer representations 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 speak 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 fo much the "more excellent, as they are contrary to ours." Who can be so prejudiced in their favour as to magnify the felicity of thofe ages, when a fpirit of revenge and cruelty, joined with the practice of Rapine and Robbery, reigned through the world; when no mercy was shown

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

+ Preface to her Homer.

but for the fake of lucre, when the greatest Princes were put to the fword, and their wives and daughters made flaves and concubines? On the other fide, I would not be fo delicate as those modern criticks, who are fhocked 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 Princeffes drawing water from the fprings. When we read Homer, we ought to reflect that we are reading the most ancient author in the heathen world; and thofe 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

* After this explicit declaration, on which he has elsewhere infifted alfo, and with this rectitude of judgement, it is the more surprising, that he should have taken fo much pains in the course of his tranflation, as I have occafionally noticed, to efface these traces of fimplicity in his author, and to obfcure the diftincter lineaments of antient manners by the varnish of adventitious embellishment and modernifed phrafeology.

they are stepping almost three thousand years back into the remotest Antiquity, and entertaining themselves with a clear and furprising vifion of things no where else to be found, the only true mirror* of that ancient world. By this means alone their greatest obstacles will vanish; and what ufually creates their dislike, will become a fatisfaction.

THIS Confideration may farther serve to answer for the constant use of the fame epithets to his Gods and Heroes, fuch as the far-darting Phœbus, the blue-eyed Pallas, the fwift-footed Achilles, &c. which fome have cenfured as impertinent and tedioufly repeated. Those of the Gods depended upon the powers and offices then believed 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

:

* An improvement on the comparison of the first edition "and the only authentick picture of that ancient world."

Thefe ftanding epithets may be regarded not abfurdly as modern Christian names; the repetition of which, with a view to more effectual difcrimination, excites no difguft. And fo, I fee, our poet presently, from Boileau.

Editor.

with which it was a matter of religion to falute 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 person; either naming his parents expressly, or his place of birth, profeffion, or the like: as Alexander the fon of Philip, Herodotus of Halicarnaffus, Diogenes the Cynic, &c. Homer therefore complying with the custom of his country, used such distinctive additions as better agreed with poetry. And indeed we have fomething parallel to these in modern times, fuch as the names of Harold Harefoot, Edmund Ironfide, Edward Long-fhanks, Edward the Black Prince, &c. If yet this be thought

The former claufe of this fentence is altered for the better from the first edition, and the latter for the worfe by an interpolation of ufelefs words. It ftood thus originally : "They were a "fort of Attributes that it was a matter of religion to falute them "with on all occafions, and an irreverence to omit."

After this word, in the first edition, followed the claufe,

"when they mentioned any one."

to account better for the propriety than for the repetition, I fhall add a farther conjecture. Hefiod dividing the world into its different ages, has placed a fourth age between the brazen and the iron one, of Heroes diftinct from other men: a divine race, who fought at Thebes and Troy, are called Demi-gods, and live by the care 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 raised against Homer, are such as hardly deserve 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 should think to raise the fuperftructure by undermining the foundation: one would ima

* Hefiod, lib. 1. ver. 155, &c.