376 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



mal, and the other intellectual, both of an oppofite 

 nature, and vvhich, by their union, conftitute hu- 

 man life ; juft as the harmony of every thing on 

 the Earth is compofed of two contraries. 



Certain 



painted Man complete t all others, the beft not excepted, pre- 

 fent nothing but a fkeleton of him. The Iliad of Homer, if I 

 may be allowed to judge, is the painting of every Man, as it is 

 that of all Nature. All the pallions are there, with their con- 

 trails and their (hades, the molt intellectually refined, and the 

 moft fenfually grofs. Achilles lings the praifes of the Gods to the 

 found of his lyre, and tends the cookery of a leg of mutton in a 

 kettle. This laft trait has given grievous offence to our thea- 

 trical writers, who deal in the compofition of artificial heroes, 

 namely, fuch as difguife and conceal their, firft wants, as their 

 authors themfelves difguife their own to Society, All the paffions 

 of the human breaft are to be found in the Iliad : furious wrath 

 in Achille,, haughty ambition in Agamemnon, patriotic valour in 

 Heclor ; in Nejlor, unimpafiioned wifdom ; in Ulyjfes, crafty 

 prudence ; calumny in Tberfites ; voluptuoufnefs in Paris ; 

 faithlefs love in Helen ; conjugal love in Andromache ; paternal 

 affection in Priam ; friendfhip in Patroclus ; and fo on : and 

 befides all this, a multitude of intermediate fhades of all thefe 

 paffions, fuch as the inconfiderate courage of Diomedcs, and that 

 of Ajax, who dared to challenge theGods themfelves to the com- 

 bat : then the oppofitions of fituation and of fortune which de- 

 tach thofe characters ; fuch as a wedding, and a country feftival, 

 depicted on the formidable buckler of Achilles ; the remorfe of 

 Helen, and the reftlefs folicitude of Andromache ; the flight of 

 Heeler, on the point of perifhing under the walls of his native 

 city, in the fight of his people, whofe only defender he was ; and 

 the peaceful objects prefented to him at that tremendous moment, 

 fuch as the grove of trees, and the fountain to which the Trojan 



young 



