298 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



of the passage. Events have, indeed, been hastening to 

 a crisis up to the end of Book XVII., and the action 

 is checked in a marked manner by the * Oplopoeia ' in 

 Book XVIII. Yet it is quite in Homer's manner to 

 introduce, between two series of important events, an 

 interval of comparative inaction, or at least of events 

 wholly different in character from those of either series. 

 We have a marked instance of this in Books IX. and 

 X. Here the appeal to Achilles and the night-adven- 

 ture of Diomed and Ulysses are interposed between the 

 first victory of the Trojans and the great struggle in 

 which Patroclus is slain, and Agamemnon, Ulysses, 

 Diomed, Machaon, and Eurypylus wounded. 1 In fact, 

 one cannot doubt that in such an arrangement Homer 

 exhibits admirable taste and judgment. The contrast 

 between action and inaction, or between the confused 

 tumult of a heady conflict and the subtle advance of the 

 two Greek heroes, is conceived in the true poetic spirit. 

 The dignity and importance of the action, and the 

 interest of the interposed events, are alike enhanced. 

 Indeed, there is scarcely a noted author whose works do 

 not afford instances of corresponding contrasts. How 

 skilfully, for example, has Shakespeare interposed the 

 ' bald, disjointed chat ' of the sleepy porter between the 

 conscience-wrought horror of Duncan's murderers and 

 the 'horror, horror, horror' which 'tongue nor heart 



1 Another well-known instance, where ' Patroclus, sent in hct 

 haste for news by a man of the most fiery impatience, is button- 

 held by Nestor, and though he has no time to sit down, yet is 

 obliged to endure a speech of 152 lines,' is accounted for by Glad- 

 stone in a different manner. 



