1831.] Home?-: a Bhapsodij. 177 



one universal and all-ruling idea. The Iliad is like a mighty temple of 

 ancient worship, into which the light creeps through a thousand mossy 

 openings ; yet the enthusiast still beholds a spirit of glory sitting in 

 silent majesty, by ihe ruined shrine of the old religion. 



Perhaps the distinguishing characteristic of the Iliad is the idea of 

 power and grandeur which it conveys. Who supposes for a moment 

 that the dominions of Agamemnon, the leader of the Grecian armament, 

 were not larger than the territory of a Scottish chieftain ? The spirit 

 of the poetry is dark and terrible ; it delighteth in the clang of arms, 

 and the roar of the chariots, and the tumult of the battle ; it walketh 

 among the more stern and revengeful passions of men, but the golden 

 light of a most gentle humanity is scattered about its head. Gentle, we 

 mean, when we consider the mind of the age ; the performance of one 

 of the commonest duties of christian charity by a Highland cataran 

 amounted to an act of rare and positive virtue. 



It has been a favourite amusement of many, to form comparisons 

 between the Homeric poems and the Sacred Writings. The voice of 

 the Homeric poetry is instinc'- with life and passion, whether it be in 

 the battle-cry of the warrior, or the " linked sweetness" of the orator, 

 or the words, sweeter than perfume, of Paris, the Trojan lover. The 

 voice of the Hebrew falls upon the heart like moonlight on a grave ; — 

 it is not of earth, earthly ; you listen to it as unto the echoes, growing 

 faint and fainter, of depailing feet. — It leaves a silence upon the soul. 



I have been reading the Iliad and Odyssey, with Flaxman's Illus- 

 trations — I will not call them compositions — by my side. They are 

 worth all the interpretations of the bard put together -certainly, no 

 sculptor has ever surpassed the purity of these outlines — they are the 

 shadowings of poetry. Look at the third Book of the Iliad ; Venus 

 coming to Helen. How like the Queen of Beauty ! — her footsteps are 

 sweeter- toned than the voices of a summer dream — she leaneth on the 

 filmy air as upon the bosom of her Dardan lover — a Grecian Taglioni ! 

 — we almost fancy we can hear the whispers of her lips, softer than 

 the zephyr creeping between the purple fans of the butterfly. Worthy 

 of the antique minstrelsy, is the image I have taken from that woof of 

 beautiful thoughts, the Romance of Endymion. 



Surely Flaxman could have translated some passages in the Iliad 

 divinely. Can any thing be more touchingly sublime than the repre- 

 sentation of Sleepi in the fourteenth Book — her wings folded, and 

 the mantle hanging down on each side of her face ; the garment scarcely 

 heaveth — it is a living death ! Homer never painted a picture more 

 pathetic than Iris standing before Priam. His face is almost entirely 

 covered, and his arms are resting on his knees — poor old man ! There 

 is a very interesting paper in the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions, 

 on the old men of Homer. The affection of Priam for his children is 

 warm and lasting ; in the last Book of the Iliad only, is bitterness min- 

 gled with his parental tenderness — it may well be so — grief has come 

 down upon him, like an armed man — Death sits in the palace of his 

 ancestors — Hector is no longer numbered among the living — his plume 

 is in tlie dust ; the spear is broken. Desolate old man ! — " Thy taber- 

 nacle is spoiled, and all tliy chords are broken. Thy children are 

 gone forth from thee, and they are not. There is none to stretch forth 

 thy tent any more, and to set up the curtains." — Ezeldel. 

 M.M. New Series.— Y01..XU. No. (i8. U 



