fuperior in this point the invention of Homer was to that of all others. The speeches are to be confidered as they flow from the characters, being perfect or defective as they agree or disagree with the manners of those who utter them. As there is more variety of characters in the Iliad, fo there is of speeches, than in any other poem, Every thing in it has manners (as Aristotle expresses it) that is, every thing is acted or spoken. It is hardly credible in a work of such length, how small a number of line are employed in narration. In Virgil the dramatic part is lefs in proportion to the narrative; and the speeches often confist of general reflections or thoughts, which might be equally just in any perfon's mouth upon the fame occafion.. As many of his perfons have no apparent characters, so many of his fpeeches escape being applied and judged by the rule of propriety. We oftner think of the author himself when we read Virgil, than when we are engaged in Homer: all which are the effects of a colder invention, that interefts us less in the action defcribed: Homer makes us hearers, and Virgil leaves us readers. If in the next place we take a view of the fentiments, the fame prefiding faculty is eminent in the fublimity and fpirit of his thoughts. Longinus has given his opinion, that it was in this part Homer principally excelled. What were alone fufficient to prove the grandeur and excellence of his fentiments in general, is, that they have fo remarkable a parity with thofe of the fcripture; Duport, in his Gnomologia Homerica, has collected collected innumerable inftances of this fort. And it is with justice an excellent modern writer allows, that if Virgil has not fo many thoughts that are low and vulgar, he has not fo many that are sublime and noble ; and that the Roman author feldom rifes into very aftonishing fentiments, where he is not fired by the Iliad. If we obferve his descriptions, images, and fimiles, we shall find the invention ftill predominant. To what else can we afcribe that vaft comprehenfion of images of every fort, where we fee each circumstance of art, and individual of nature summoned together, by the extent and fecundity of his imagination; to which all things, in their various views, prefented themselves in an inftant, and had their impreffions taken off to perfection at a heat? Nay, he not only gives us the full profpects of things, but several unexpected peculiarities and side-views, unobserved by any painter but Homer. Nothing is fo furprizing as the defcriptions of his battles, which take up no less than half the Iliad, and are supplied with so vaft a variety of incidents, that no one bears a likeness to another; fuch different kinds of deaths, that no two heroes are wounded in the fame manner; and such a profusion of noble ideas, that every battle rifes above the laft in: greatness, horror, and confusion. It is certain there is not near that number of images and descriptions in any Epic Poet; though every one has affifted himself with a great quantity out of him: and it is evident of Virgil especially, that he has scarce any comparisons which are not drawn from his master. If If we defcend from hence to the expreffion, we fee the bright imagination of Homer shining out in the moft enlivened forms of it. We acknowledge him the father of poetical diction, the first who taught that language of the gods to men. His expreffion is like the colouring of fome great masters, which discovers itself to be laid on boldly, and executed with rapidity. It is indeed the ftrongest and moft glowing imaginable, and touched with the greatest spirit. Aristotle had reason to say, He was the only poet who had found out living words; there are in him more daring figures and metaphors than in any good author whatever. An arrow is impatient to be on the wing, and a weapon thirsts to drink the blood of an enemy, and the like. Yet his expreffion is never too big for the fenfe, but juftly great in proportion to it. It is the fentiment that fwells and fills out the diction, which rises with it, and forms itfelf about it: for in the fame degree that a thought is warmer, an expreffion will be brighter; as that is more ftrong, this will become more perfpicuous: like glass in the furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude, and refines to a greater clearnefs, only as the breath within is more powerful, and the heat more intense. This To throw his language more out of profe, Homer feems to have affected the compound epithets. was a fort of compofition peculiarly proper to poetry, not only as it heightened the diction, but as it affifted and filled the numbers with greater found and pomp, and likewise conduced in some measure to thicken the images. images. On this last consideration I cannot but attribute these alfo to the fruitfulness of his invention, since, (as he has managed them) they are a fort of supernumerar y pictures of the perfons or things to which they are joined. We fee the motion of Hector's plumes in the epithet opufion, the landfcape of Mount Neritus in that of eivociquaa®, and fo of others; which particular images could not have been infifted upon fo long as to express them in a description (though but of a fingle line) without diverting the reader too much from the principal action or figure. As a metaphor is a fhort fimile; one of thefe epithets is a fhort defcrip tion. Laftly, if we confider his verfification, we fhall be fenfible what a fhare of praife is due to his invention in that. He was not fatis fied with his fanguage as he found it fettled in any one part of Greece, but fearched through its differing dialects with this particular view, to beautify and perfect his numbers: he confidered these as they had a greater mixture of vowels and confonants, and accordingly employed them as the verse required either a greater fimoothnefs or ftrength. What he most affected was the Ionic, which has a peculiar fweetness from its never ufing contractions, and from its custom of refolving the diphthongs into two fyllables; fo as to make the words open themfelves with a more fpreading and fonorous fluency. With this he mingled the Attic contractions, the broader Doric, and the feebler Æolic, which often rejects its afpirate, or takes off its accent; and compleated this variety by altering fome letters with the licence of poetry. Thus his measures, inftead 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 correfpondence of their founds to what they fignified. Out of all thefe 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 majesty of found, than in any other lan guage or poetry. The beauty of his numbers is allowed by the criticks to be copied but faintly by Virgil himself, though they are so just 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 verse, which agree with the genius of no other language: Virgil was very fenfible of this, and ufed 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 3 fuffices |