altering fome letters with the licence of poetry. Thus his measures, instead of being fetters to his fenfe, were always in readiness to run along with the warmth of his rapture, and even to give a farther representation of his notions, in the correspondence of their founds to what they fignified. Out of all these he has derived that harmony, which makes us confefs he had not only the richest head, but the finest ear in the world. This is fo great a truth, that whoever will but confult the tune of his verses, even without understanding them (with the fame fort of diligence as we daily fee practifed in the cafe of Italian Operas) will find more sweetness, variety, and majefty of found, than in any other language or poetry. The beauty of his numbers is allowed by the criticks to be copied but faintly by Virgil. himself, though they are fo juft to afcribe it to the nature of the Latin tongue: indeed the Greek has fome advantages both from the natural found of its words, and the turn and cadence of its verfe, which agree with the genius of no other language: Virgil was very fenfible of this, and used the utmost diligence in working up a more intractable language to whatsoever graces it was capable of; and in particular never failed to bring the found of his line to a beautiful agreement with its fenfe. If the Grecian poet has not been fo frequently celebrated on this account as the Roman, the only reafon is, that fewer criticks have understood one language than the other. Dionyfius of Halicarnaffus has pointed out many of our Author's beauties in this kind, in his treatise of the Compofition of Words. It

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fuffices

fuffices at present to obferve of his numbers, that they flow with fo much eafe, as to make one imagine Homer had no other care than to tranfcribe as fast as the Mufes dictated: and at the fame time with fo much force and infpiriting vigour, that they awaken and raise us like the found of a trumpet. They roll along as a plentiful river, always in motion, and always full: while we are borne away by a tide of verfe, the most ra. pid, and yet the most smooth imaginable.

Thus, on whatever fide we contemplate Homer, what principally ftrikes us is his Invention. It is that which forms the character of each part of his work; and accordingly we find it to have made his fable more extenfive and copious than any other, his manners more lively and ftrongly marked, his speeches more affecting and transported, his fentiments more warm and sublime, his images and defcriptions more full and animated, his expreffion more raised and daring, and his numbers more rapid and various. I hope, in what has been faid of Virgil with regard to any of these heads, I have no way derogated from his character. Nothing is more abfurd or endlefs, than the common method of comparing eminent writers by an oppofition of particuJar paffages in them, and forming 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 excel

led

led 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, because Homer poffeft a larger fhare of it: each of thefe great Authors had more of both than perhaps any man befides, and are only faid to have lefs in comparison with one another. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the better artift. In one we moft admire the man, in the other the work: Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuofity, Virgil leads us with an attractive majefty: Homer scatters 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 resemble the heroes they celebrate: Homer, boundlefs and irrefiftible as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines more and more as the tumult increases; Virgil, calmly daring like Æneas, appears undisturbed 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.

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 diftinguifh exactly where the virtue ends, or the fault begins. As prudence may fometimes fink to fufpicion, fo may a great judgment decline to coldness; and as magnanimity may run up to profusion or extravagance, so may a great invention to redundancy or wildnefs. If we look upon Homer in this view, we shall perceive the chief objections against him to proceed from fo noble a caufe 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 giganti: bodies, which,exerting themfelves 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 glories and inimitable performances. Thus Homer has his fpeaking horfes, and Virgil his myrtles diftilling blood, where the latter has not fo much as contrived the eafy intervention of a Deity to fave the probability.

It is owing to the same vast invention, that his fimiles have been thought too exuberant and full of circumftances. The force of this faculty is feen in nothing more, than in its inability to confine itself to that fingle circumstance upon which the comparison is grounded: it runs out into embellishments 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 agreeably to the original, but is also fet off with occafional ornaments and profpects. The fame will account for his manner of heaping a number of comparisons together in one breath, when his fancy fuggefted to him at once fo many various and correfpondent images. The reader will eafily extend this obfervation to more objections of the fame kind.

If there are others which feem rather to charge him with a defect or narrownefs of genius, than an excefs 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 reprefentations of the Gods, and the vicious and imperfect manners of his Heroes; but I muft 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 thofe times and manners are fo much the more << excellent, as they are more contrary to ours." Who can be fo 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 fhewn but for the fake of lucre, when the greateft princes were put to VOL. I. C

Preface to her Homer.

the