1828.] Echard’s Contempt of Clergy. 581 
Employments: and therefore what pleasure, do we think, can such a one 
take, in being bound to get against breakfast two or three hundred Rumblers 
out of Homey, in commendation of Achilles’s Toes, or the Grecian’s Boots? 
Or to have measured out unto him, very early in the morning, fifteen or twenty 
well laid on lashes, for letting a Syllable slip too soon, or hanging too long on 
upon it ; Doubtless, instant execution upon such grand Miscarriages as these, 
will eternally engage him to a most admirable opinion of the Muses.” 
This is a fair specimen of his style. He appears to have had a great 
dislike for Homer, which was a common feeling, indeed, among all the 
class of writers of which he was one. In his defence of his book—for 
he was immediately assailed—he recurs to this passage, which had been 
attacked by one of his antagonists: — 
« And as for the business of Homer, if the Answerer will promise me not be 
angry, I will for once chuse rather to be of My Lord Bacon's Opinion than his, 
who tells us in his advancement of Learning, ‘ That he can without any diffi- 
culty pronounce, that the Fables of Homer (notwithstanding he has been made 
a kind of Scripture by the later Schools of the Grecians) had no such inward- 
ness in his own meaning;’ but, however, as the Answerer well observes, there 
is somewhat else in Homer besides Achilles’ toes. But I profess, Sir, my 
mind did so run upon the so often commended Movcables of the Captain 
(xéde¢ wuts) that J might easily forget the Buckle-garters. But is there nothing 
else in that ancient and venerable Poet, but stories of Footmanship, and such 
like low accomplishment? Was it not he that laid down the first Elements of 
Physic and Chirurgery ; and gave the first glimpses for scraping of Lint, and 
spreading Plaisters upon Leather? Is he to be undervalued, that is not only the 
most Christian, but most Protestant of Poets ; in whose works you may not 
only find all practical Divinity, as fast as in the little book of piety itself; but 
most cases of Conscience warily resolved, and knotty Controversies acutely 
decided? Is he to be called a Rumbler, who glides as smooth as a star, or a 
fired Rocket of Tow ?—who was not like common confined mortals, born at 
one dull place ; but at no less than seven the most eminent Cities of the East ? 
Is he, with whose works Alexander alone could take rest, whereas the whole 
world besides could not content him ?” 
After some drolling about the commentators discovering all science in 
Homer, and some sneers by a side-wind at Virgil, he proceeds :— 
“ But withal, Six, I must beg leave to put in a caution or two, as to what 
was said a little before concerning Homer; and then not a word more of 
Homey all this year. And first of all I have made some little enquiry, con- 
cerning Alexander laying him under his pillow ; and I find that the Learned 
differ ; some placing him only upon a stool by the bed-side, and others over 
his Head upon a little Ridge; the ancient manuscripts not fully agreeing 
about ‘m0 and vz; and as for Rablais, 1 shall not undertake for his being of 
the reformed Religion ; but as to Divine Mysteries, | think that Homer and He 
may equally pretend; and though Comparisons are odious, yet I am some- 
what forward to acknowledge that the mighty Spirit of Garagantua, declining 
the vulgar way of coming into the World, and cunningly crawling up the 
Hollow vein, and so making his escape under his Mother’s Ear, is not much 
inferior either for Honour or Strangeness, to that seven-city Birth of Homer. 
I meet indeed sometimes with Idle, Extravagant People, that are so profane 
“as to compare his Poems to Chivy Chace, but such I always check, shewing 
them plainly, that when the Poet has a mind to recreate his Readers to pur- 
pose, then by the elegant help of his little tickling s:$, and &S, he could do 
it so effectually, that nothing ever came more delightful from the Town of 
Athens. What more Theorbo-like than to 9 jPel érevra Marne avdpwvre Sewvere, 
But indeed when the broad sides of Polwphloisboios, the Hippodamios, and the — 
Poluscarthmoios, are dreadfully discharged towards the upper end of the school, 
