2'JO on EfigUjh poetry, -^the Epigoniad. Aug. tii^ 

 write a poein which would be equally immortal as 

 the Illiad itself. He therLfore set himself to con- 

 trive the plan of an epic poem, on the model of Ho^ 

 mer ; and bj dint of immense labour and perseve- 

 rance, at length produced a work, consisting of a 

 great many thousand verses, divided into a certaia 

 number of hooks, which he called an epic poem. 

 This performance was constructed according to the 

 jules of Aristotle. It had a regular beginning, a 

 middle, and an end. In imitation of Homer, too, 

 it began with an invocation ; — many battles were 

 fought between valiant Heroes, — much blood was 

 spilt, and various wounds were inflicted and described 

 with, I suppose, great anatomical precision :— episodes 

 too were introduced, — orations were pronounced, 

 .— funeral games were celebrated, — similes, and 

 all the figures of speech that have been enumerated 

 by rhetoricians as necefsary to add dignity to compo- 

 sition, were occasionally introduced to embellifh it. 

 It was, in fliort, as exact an imitation as the writer 

 could make of Homer's Illiad, — but without one 

 spark of poetical fire from the beginning to the end.. 

 It might be said to bear such a resemblance to the 

 Illiad, as the corpse of Hector when chained to the 

 chariot of Achilles bore to the living Hector, tri- 

 umphant as he drove the trembling Grecians to theii; 

 iliips. It was a resemblance that brought nothing, 

 but the melancholy rfcollection of the lofs that had 

 been sustained by the absence of the original. I need 

 scarcely add, that the work to which 1 here allude, 

 is the Epigoniad of Wilkie. Wilkie was a man whona 

 1 knew wel', and whom 1 esteemed both for his iS" 



