AND IMAGINATION* 



627 



Could it be supposed, that he who could imagine so finely, and describe 

 so delicately, would in the same poem compare the contest of the Greeks 

 and Trojans for the body of Patroclus, which it seems was tugged for in 

 evqry direction, to a gang of curriers stretching out a hide ? Or, that in his 

 Odyssey, he would liken Ulysses, restless and tossing on his bed, to a 

 hungry man turning a piece of tripe on the coals for his supper ? 



Now, in both these cases the similes are true to nature, and strikingly 

 illustrative ; they are full of genius, but they are destitute of taste ; they 

 want picturesque beauty. To nature, indeed, they must be true ; for the 

 merit of Homer as a painter from nature is that in which lie stands most 

 distinguished from all other poets. In variety, accuracy, and force, his 

 similes greatly surpass those of any of his successors and imitators ; and 

 they form a gallery of delineations which the student of poetry and the 

 cultivator of genius cannot survey with too much attention : — 



Be Homer's works your study and delight, 



Read them by day, and meditate by night ; 



Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, 



And trace the muses upwards to their spring. * 



In looking very lately over the satires of Dr. Young, which, upon the 

 whole, are written with great force and truth of character, I could scarcely 

 avoid smiling at a simile which, like the preceding, is exact enough in itself, 

 but highly ludicrous from its utter deficiency of taste. In describing the 

 man whose whole pursuits are made up of nothing but trifling and empty 

 joys, he compares him to a cat in an air-pump. Now, this might have 

 been well enough in Hudibras, or any other burlesque poem ; but it is alto- 

 gether inconsistent with a vein of serious composition. In the following 

 comparison, on the contrary, he is highly ingenious and successful ; and 

 we admire the adroitness with vvhich he brings into various points of re- 

 semblance ideas that at first sight appear to be perfectly discrepant ; for 

 quicksilver and pleasure do not seem to have any natural connexion - 



Pleasures are few, and fewer we enjoy ; 

 Pleasure, like quicksilver, is bright and coy ; 

 We strive to grasp it with our utmost skill, 

 Still it eludes us, and it glitters still. 

 If seiz'd at last, compute your mighty gains, 

 What is it but rank poison in your veins ? 



There is no subject that has been more frequently made choice of by 

 dramatic writers than the story of CEdipus Tyrannus. We owe it, in the 

 first instance, to Sophocles ; and the best copies of it in modern times are 

 those by Corneille and Voltaire. It is unquestionably full of suspense, 

 agitation, and terror; and particularly of that incident in a plot vvhich by 

 the Greeks was termed anagnorisis, or the discovery of a person to be 

 diiferent from what he was taken to be. Yet, as a whole, there has always 

 appeared to me to be far more genius in the conduct of the fable than there 

 is of real taste or beauty. The story is, in few words, as follows : — An 

 innocent person, and, in the main, of a virtuous character, through no crime 

 of himself or of others, but by mere fatality and blind chance, is involved 

 in the severest train of all human miseries. In a casual rencounter he kills 

 Ms father without knowing him ; he afterwards, with equal ignorance, 



* Art of Criticism. 



