poetical fire, this Vivida vis animi*, in a very few. Even in works where all thofe are imperfect or neglected, this can over-power criticism, and make us admire even while we

disapprove. Nay, where this 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 glass, reflected from Homer, more shining than fiercet,

Swift as a flood of fire, when storms arise,

Floats the wide field, and blazes to the skies. Ver. 946. He feems to have made fome use of Dacier, and might have profited by a closer adherence to her expreffion: A l'éclat de fes armes, on l'auroit prife pour un embrafement, qui ravageoit la plaine.

Chapman is very strange:

their breaths, as they did paffe, Before them flew, as if a fire, fed on the trembling graffe.

Travers is more commendable than his predeceffors:

Now rufh'd the armies with a clatt'ring found,
Swift as a flame devours the thirsty ground.

The line may be literally given thus :

As fire devouring the whole ground, they went : whence the English reader, unfettered by comments, may form his own opinion of Homer's object in this comparison.

This expreffion, the lively vigour of mind, is taken from the firft book of Lucretius, and is applied to the genius of Epicurus by that fublime poet.

Editor.

+ In the first edition, with lefs elegance he wrote, And more

but every where equal and conftant: in Lucan and Statius, it bursts out in fudden, short, and

interrupted flashes: in Milton it glows like a furnace kept up to an uncommon ardor * by the force of art: in Shakespear, it strikes 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 irresistibly †.

I SHALL 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

fhining than warm. The improvement might be fuggested by a verfe in Prior's Lady's Looking-Glafs:

The fetting fun adorn'd the coast,

His beams intire, his fierceness loft.

In much the fame spirit Longinus, Sect. ix. fays of Homer: "So that in his Odyssey, we may compare Homer to the setting fun, whose magnitude continues without his fiercenefs." Editor.

* Altered from "the uncommon fierceness" of the first edition, for an obvious reafon. Editor.

+ It is not improbable, that our poet profited in this paffage by the fame rhetorician's eftimate of Demofthenes and Cicero in the xii. fection of his treatise:

"Demofthenes from his vehemence, his rapidity, his ftrength "and fiercenefs, may be resembled to a flash of lightning, or a thunder-bolt; but Cicero, like a fpreading fire, rolls himself "round in extenfive devaftation with a vigorous and lafting flame."

peculiar characteristic which distinguishes him

from all other authors.

THIS ftrong and ruling faculty was like a powerful star*, which in the violence of its courfe, drew all things within its vortex. It feemed not enough to have taken in the whole circle of arts, and the whole compass of nature to fupply his maxims and reflections; all the inward paffions and affections of mankind, to furnish his characters; and all the outward forms and images of things for his defcriptions; but wanting yet an ampler fphere to expatiate in, he opened a new and boundless walk for his imagination, and created a world for himself in the invention of Fable.

calls the Soul of poetry,

:

That which Ariftotle

was first breathed into

* Star in the first edition, planet; and altered without reason, probably at the inftigation of fome friend, pretending to more philofophy than he poffeft: for the Cartefian hypothefis prefumed, that the planets were borne along by vortices; the fecondary round. Editor. the primary, and the primary round the fun.

+ To Supply his maxims and reflections.] This claufe was superadded to the first edition; and furnish, in the next fentence, fubftituted for Supply. Editor.

So Dr. Johnson, in his fublime and juftly celebrated prologue, of Shakspeare:

Exhaufted worlds, and then imagin'd new.

1

it by Homer*. I shall begin with confidering him in this part, as it is naturally the first, and I fpeak of it both as it means the design 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 such actions as though they did not happen, yet might, in the common course of nature: or of fuch as though they did, become fables by the additional episodes and manner of telling them. Of this fort is the main ftory of an Epic poem, the return of Ulyffes, the Settlement of the Trojans in Italy, or the like. That of the Iliad is the anger of Achilles, the most short and fingle fubject that ever was chosen by any Poet. Yet this he has fupplied with a vaster 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

* This is elegantly expressed; but Aristotle's words are these : Άρχη μεν εν και οίον ψυχὴ ὁ μυθος της τραγῳδίας, δευτερον δε τα ηθη : Poët. cap. στο "The Fable is the foundation, and as it were the soul, of Tragedy next the Morals." Editor.

are of the utmost latitude and irregularity. The action is hurried on with the most vehement spirit, 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 hist. The other epic poets have used the same practice, but generally carried it fo far as to fuperinduce a multiplicity of fables, destroy the unity of action, and lose their readers in an unreasonable length of time. Nor is it only in the main defign that they have been unable to add to his invention ‡, but they have fol

*So that the plan of the Odyssey is adumbrated in the six first Æneids, and that of the Iliad in the fix laft. Editor.

+ The shortness of fome books in the Odyffey, and the greater general length of Virgil's books, render a larger proportion, than that of one to four, neceffary in his favour. Editor.

This uniform traditionary decifion of the critics may be reasonably called in queftion, from a very obvious and indifputable principle: What has once acquired the general applause and admiration of mankind, renders a material departure from it's plan extremely hazardous, and insecure of public approbation. Paffive acquiefcence, therefore, may fpring from timidity, as well as from