105 



meet with the venerable Nestor, the fond eulogist of the past genei'a- 

 tion, and the youthful AchiUes, the hope, not to be realised, of the 

 future ; the imperious sternness aud implacability of Agamemnon ; the 

 cunning and daring of Odysseus ; the heroic devotion of Hector ; the 

 conjugal fidelity of Penelope; the seductive charms of Helen; and 

 Andromache's maternal tenderness, that breaks out into tears, when her 

 foreboding spirit foresees the approaching orphanhood of the child at her 

 bosom. 



We cannot exhaust or even indicate the exuberance of forms which 

 the fertile soil of the Homeric fables shoots forth, to display all the 

 luxuriance of the richest colours, in the vivifying light of the poet's 

 genius. When with the illusion of a lively imagination we have 

 evoked before our eyes these gorgeous pictures, and suddenly turn to 

 the sublime sameness, the grand and majestic monotony of the "Para- 

 dise Lost," we can fancy to realise the feelings with which the desert 

 traveller returns to the dreary reality of a sandy waste, sublime though 

 awful, from the momentary enchantment in which he had gazed upon 

 the waving trees aud glittering cupolas of a Fata Morgana.* 



The great superiority of the Homeric fables over that of the "Para- 

 dise Lost " is not confined to the greater variety of the material, and to 

 the intensity of human interest, excited by it. As a religious epic, 

 it was so far from giving offence to the pious feelings of many genera- 

 tions of Greeks, that it almost supplied the want of a sacred volume, 

 and became, to a great extent, the highest authority in matters of 

 religion. It was Homer, that inspired Phidias to the divine conception 

 of his Olympic Zeus, and around this masterpiece of the combined 

 genius of poet and sculptor it was, that, for ages and ages, the solemn 

 assemblies of the scattered tribes of the Hellenes were gathered to 

 celebrate their festive games, to sing their enraptured odes, and to dis- 

 play the whole of their gay religion, full of pomp, gold, and pride ; it 

 adorned the altar of the centre of the Greek religion, and that of the 

 Greek brothei'hood. 



Such was the fable of the Homeric poems ; and such the contrast of 

 that of the "Paradise Lost." Without attempting totally to exhaust 

 the subject, let us now proceed to inquire into the design, that is, the 

 plan and structure of the poem. 



The plan of the " Paradise Lost " is in all essentials that of the 

 " Odyssey," and it has therefore all the merits and all the demerits of 



* Addison says, "The angels are indeed as mjch diversified in Milton, and distinguished 

 by their proper parts, ns the Gods are in Homer or Virgil." How could a classical 

 scholar write this? 



