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Homer, docs not lessen their importance on that account. 

 i"^"' On the contrary, the epic spirit of the piece is height- 

 ened by this machinery, because it is clearly perceived 

 that the heroes thus favoured of heaven, rise in the opi- 

 nion of their associates and adversaries on that account. 

 Achilles excepted, there is not a hero of the Iliad who 

 does not at some time or other retire before another. 

 What distinguishes the bravest, such as Ajax and 

 Diomede, is, that they fight as they retreat. And it 

 may be observed, to the glory of Homer, that, in spite 

 of this divine intervention, which we might expect to 

 confound all distinctions of human bravery, lie still 

 preserves the distinctive character of greatness in his 

 heroes, even when yielding to supernal influence. 



It is a singular trait in the Iliad, that the sullen rest 

 of its hero Achilles should form the main-spring of the 

 action. His absence appears to be the cause of the dis- 

 asters of his countrymen, which prolong the contest. 

 This, so far from being a defect in the plan of the ac- 

 tion, is an artifice which carries internal evidence of 

 the whole plan being the invention of one great mind; 

 all the prowess of the successive agents that are de- 

 scribed, ministers to the ultimate triumph of him by 

 whom Hector is to fall. In the fire and spirit of this 

 ancient hero, Homer has not certainly left what it would 

 be absurd to seek for in ancient poetry, a model of 

 pure morality ; but he has consummated the picture of 

 all that must have commanded the respect of warlike 

 and barbarous times, and has in fact pourtrayed a being 

 that would, under different circumstances, in all ages 

 predominate over the rest of his species, by his pride 

 and energy. It may be necessary to notice the vulgar 

 tradition of his being invulnerable all over but in the 

 heel ; but Homer does not debase the courage of his 

 hero by such a fable : nor is his character of stern pride 

 unrelieved by circumstances that touch us with an in- 

 terest in his fate. His youth, his beauty, his maternal 

 descent from a goddess, the certain prediction that, 

 while he could find no conqueror, he was one day to 

 perish in the Trojan war, prepare us for the part of no 

 vulgar hero. 



To enter on a minute criticism of the Iliad would far 

 exceed our limits. The most superficial readers are 

 probably acquainted with the hackneyed objections 

 that have been made to its prolixity of speeches and 

 military details, to the minuteness and surgical de- 

 scription of wounds, the ferocity of its manners, and 

 the abusive epithets which the heroes exchange when 

 they quarrel. The French criticism of La Motte and 

 Perrault has gone even so far as to blame the simplicity 

 of its manners, and to throw contempt on Achilles for 

 cooking his own dinner. The majority of those objec- 

 tions are frivolous. It is true that the primitive abund- 

 ance of expletives, and the Greek loquacity of Homer, 

 may at times be excessive; but the dramatic air which 

 the constant dialogue gives to the Iliad, would be ill 

 exchanged for the conciseness of mere narrative. The 

 diversity of Homer's battles, as an eminent critic has 

 observed, shews an invention next to boundless ; the 

 technical terms of the wounds that are described, ap- 

 pear technical to us, only because the language of sci- 

 ence is derived from Greek ; and the fastidious taste 

 that is offended with the bold simplicity of ancient 

 manners, would with equal propriety find fault with 



Salvador Rosa for not having adorned his mountain 

 scenery with terraces and gravel-walks. Achilles 

 cooking his dinner is certainly a considerably more 

 poetical personage than Louis the XIV. would have 

 been if La Motte had made him the hero of an Epopee, 

 treading on a velvet carpet, and commanding the Mai- 

 tre d'hotel to prepare his fricasees. 



The excellencies of the Iliad, independent of the 

 beautiful and sonorous language to which it belongs, 

 may be summed up in the vastness and variety of the 

 picture of existence which it spreads before us ; the 

 spirit and perpetual motion of its agents ; the relieving 

 interchanges of an interesting interior world, and a 

 heaven of voluptuous and gay mythology ; the progres- 

 sive swell and importance of the story ; and the art 

 with which the very rest of Achilles is made subser- 

 vient to the evolution of his grandeur ; the full physiog- 

 nomy of human character displayed in every age and 

 situation of life ; the unstudied strength of his circum- 

 stances in description ; and the contagious spirit with 

 which he seizes the mind to sympathy with his martial 

 passion : Such an apocalypse of life, from its sublimest 

 tumults to its minutest manners, was never communi- 

 cated by another human imagination. 



If Homer has erred at all, it is from the wealth, or 

 rather from the pathos of his genius, in giving so strong 

 a countervailing interest to the character of Hector. 

 This unquestionably diminishes our exultation in the 

 triumph of Achilles. Yet who would wish that fault 

 undone ? Here is the generosity of genius, even in the 

 poet, scorning the bigotry of national hatred that would 

 depreciate the heroism of an enemy. It is, perhaps, re- 

 peating superfluously, what few have to be told, that 

 the character of Achilles, so unlike the inexorabilis acer 

 of Horace, has a relief of the noblest traits of compas- 

 sion and generosity amidst the fury of his savage pas- 

 sions. The concluding book of the Iliad teems with 

 the most touching circumstances of his generosity. He 

 receives King Priam, joins him in his tears at the re- 

 collection of their respective losses ; perfumes the body, 

 and orders it to be kept out of the father's sight, lest it 

 should shock the grief of the king ; places it himself in 

 a litter, fearing that Priam might burst into a fit of ex- 

 asperation, and should exasperate himself also; and, fi- 

 nally, refreshes him with food and sleep in his tent, and 

 takes him by the right hand as a friend. In recogni- 

 zing such traits of compassion in the proverbially sa- 

 vage Achilles, one is tempted to believe, that humanity 

 is not so modern a virtue as some would have us be- 

 lieve. 



The Odyssey speaks less to the imagination than the 

 Iliad, but it introduces us to a still more .minute and 

 interesting view of ancient manners, and it awakens 

 with deeper effect the softer passions that appear but 

 rarely in the other poem. It is strange, that La Harpe, 

 who redeems much of his bad French taste by an ap- 

 parently sincere enthusiasm for the genius of Homer, 

 should say, that the Odyssey is devoid of the eloquence 

 of sentiment. If by sentiment we mean the sickly 

 misanthropy, or the rampant enthusiasm which distin- 

 guishes so many modern productions, there is certainly 

 nothing of the kind in the Odyssey ; and the difference 

 of circumstances in which human nature was then 

 placed, must be fairly estimated,* before we can even 



' Many Oriental countries retain to this day manners of society nearly similar to those described in the Odyssey. There is nothing 

 more remarkable in those manners than the degree of refinement to which profound dissimulation is carried in all ranks. The stran- 

 ger accommodates his language much less to his own sentiments, than to his hopes and fears, or the countenance of those he meets. 

 The arts of disguise are, in those countries, the great arts of life; and the character of Ulysses would form a perfect model for those 

 who wish to make their way with security and respect. Cruelty, violence, and injustice, are also so evidently the result of defective 



