ILLUStRATED and CONFIRMED. 73 



But I was foon convinced that Mr Bryant had no treacherous 

 defign in making this conceffion ; and the hypothefis having al- 

 fo the ftrong fupport of Mr Heyne *, there is now good reafon 

 to be confident that it is well founded. 



M. Chevalier, in the beginning of his Xllth chapter, had 

 remarked, that Mr Bryant has endeavoured to prove " that 

 " the Greeks were miftaken in fuppofing thofe to be the tombs 

 " of heroes, which were in reality confecrated mounds." This 

 cbfervation, it feems, was of too general a nature. Mr Bryant 

 meant what he faid to be taken in a limited, not a general, 

 fenfe ; and thinks himfelf much injured by this mifreprefenta- 

 tion. He wifhes, therefore, that M, Chevalier had paifed him 

 by unregarded ; and in this wifh I heartily concur : for I am 

 fure M. Chevalier will fincerely regret that he fhould have 

 written any thing that could be conftrued into a defign to in- 

 jure Mr Bryant's reputation; which I am as much convinced 

 he never intended, as I am confcious that I never meant, by the 

 long unfortunate note fubjoined on the fubjedt of barrows, to 

 fupport him in any fuch defign. 



But in following Mr Bryant any further, I am afraid I 

 fhould trefpafs on the indulgence of the Society. I did former- 

 ly, and do now, entertain a high refpe<5l for that gentleman's 

 talents, learning, and character: at the fame time, I cannot help 

 lamenting, that he Ihould ever have mifemployed thofe talents, 

 and that learning, in a laborious attempt which can never en- 

 lighten the mind with any cheerful rays of convidlion ; nor 

 ever reach beyond a dreary and difguftful ftate of obfcurity and 

 doubt, tending to blunt or extinguifli thofe pleafing fenfations 

 which the poems of Homer excite in every bread qualified to 

 feel their genuine fpirit ; and for a diminution of which, the 

 efforts of a frigid and phlegmatic erudition, even if fuccefsful in 

 proving them to have been derived entirely from fidtion, would 

 fcarcely be able to compenfate. But that " the war on which 



Vol. IV. k " Homer 



* See his Note, Appendix, No. II. 



