HERO. 
ferved. In this fenfe we properly fay, Alexander was a hero, 
Julius Cefar a great man. ee 
~ Hero of a poem, or romance, is the principal perfonage, or 
he who has the chief part in it. 
“Thus the hero of the Iliad-is Achilles ; of the Odyfley, 
Ulyffes ; of the Aéneid, Afneas ; of the Pharfalia of Lu- 
can, Pompey ; of Taifo’s Jerufalem, Godfrey of Bulloign, 
-or, as Blair thinks, Rinaldo, copied in part after Homer’s 
Achilles ; of the Lufiad of Camoens, Vafco; of Milton’s 
Paradife Loft, Adam; though Mr. Dryden will have the 
devil to be Milton’s hero, becaufe he gets the better of 
Adam, and drives him out of Paradife. , 
The character of Achilles is the inexorable wrath of a | 
haughty, valiant, unjuft, and revengeful princes Homer has 
been blamed for making his hero of tco brutal-and unami- 
able a character. But injultice, fays Blair, is commonly 
done to Achilles, upon the credit of two lines of Horace, 
who has certainly overloaded his character : 
. “ Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer, 
Jura neget fibi nata; nihil non arroget armis.” 
Achilles is paffionate to a great degree, heis 
7 j Befides his 
the characters of moft 
whole, abundantly fitted to raife high admiration, though 
The character of Ulyiles, 
invincible courage. 
ble and delicate ; and wants the fire, 
lable {pirit, remarkable in the hero of 
are the virtues of the middle clafs of mankind ; 
inftrument of fuch notable exploits. St. Evremond looks 
: ire. F. Boffu defends Virgil’s hero, or 
at leaft Vir gil, with admirable gaddrefs. neas’s er, 
he: obferve: n the model, either of 
What Virgil 
thor, to make the 
‘Ment, and anew mafter; this matter, then, muft have allt 
and all the vir- 
was, of 
tion of 
fufpeted 
> 
* painter, : 
een wiped away, and their fig 
t 
hilles.. prime parts; 
routed by 
Ulyffes ; that being a quality which renders a man 
not beloved. ee Seok) 
required, that the hero of 
tuous m 
hero in morality, anda hero in poetry, the fame diftinétion 
is to be made, as between moral and poetica 8. 
‘Hence as the manners of Achilles and Mezentius are poeti- 
cally as “<< as thofe of Ulyfles and AEneas, fo thofe two 
crucland unjuit men are as regular poetical heroes, as thele. 
wo jult, wife, and good men. . 
Ariftotle, indeed, reprefents the heroic virtue, asa virtue 
more than human: a 
perfons, whom the excellence 
our clafs; but this he fays _ in his books of morality : in 
a The prime perfon 
e there obferves, mu 
gular to make him as perfidious as Ixion, as unnatural as 
Medea, or as brutal as Achilles. me 
It is another fubjeét of controverfy among the criticty 
whether the cataftrophe or conclufion of the action, 1s necef- 
happy, and at eafe; or whether it be 
5 2h Gee 
The general practice of the heroic poets ftands for the 
We have fcarce an example of a hero who is over- 
com Milton. 
In tragedy, 
cording to Ariftotle, 
always much better 
gic feene is the throne of the paflions ; and terror and pity 
are there to rule in a pe 
arife the moft naturally from unhappy events: @ 
dience, quitting the theatre full o the mis 
i was clofed, preferve their oan — lon * 
ible efleéts from it, than if their tears he 
and feel more forcible eflect he er Le ae 
jon of a more ha ipetia. oe ay 
ae rib sgsir aes Siege place in the epopea ; which is 
{uch as admits equally © 
the unhappy 
a wolf, is a {ub 
as the generofity of a lion, 
* 
ri 
very ill with the defign : 
ariel hing from te intense perp that 
