136 
difpute between two chieftains, refpect- 
inmgatemale flave. A priett of Apollo 
implo: ‘es Agamemnon to reftore his 
daughter, who, in the plunder of a city, 
had fallen to that king’s fhare of booty. 
He is refufed. Apollo, at the requelt of 
his prieft, fends a plague into the camp 
of the Greeks. The augur, when con- 
fulted, anfwers that there is no way of 
appealing the God, but by reftoring the fair 
captive virgin to the arms of her parent. 
Agamemnon i is enraged at this ant er 
declares that he prefers this flave to bis 
wife Clytemneftra ; but fince he mutt re- 
ftore her in order to fave his army, miifis 
upon having another to fupply her place, 
and demands Brifeis, the flave of Achilles, 
The young warrior, as might be expect- 
ed, . incenfed at this demand; re- 
proaches the king of kings with raj pacity 
and injolence; and, after beftowine on 
him many injurious ‘appellations, he fo- 
lemuly {wears that, if thus treated, he 
will withdraw his troops, and no longer 
afiift the Grecians againit the Trojans. 
He accordingly leaves the camp. His 
mother, the Goddets Thetis, interefis 
Jupiter in his caufe,-who, to revenge 
the wrongs which Achilles ‘has faltered, 
aclopts his refentment, and inflicts on 
the Greeks many and tedious calamities, 
until Achilles is pacified, and a recon- 
ciliation effected between him and Aga- 
memnon. Such is the batis on which 
the action is founded; fuch the /pecioja 
-miracula of this extraordinar y poem. 
From this iketch it is feen, that Ho- 
mer did not take for his fubject the whole 
Trojan war, but felected the moft inte- 
refting part of it, the quarrel between 
the two principal perfonages. Such a 
fubject was, no doubt, happily chofen. 
The fiege of Troy formed a fplendid and 
divnified event, which had engaged the 
attention of many ages, and was worthy 
to be ce at ated by. the verie of 
Hower. confederacy of the monarchs 
of Greece to revenge the violation of 
hofpitality committed by Paris, and to 
vindicate the injured honour of Mene- 
laus, combined at once a grandeur and 
aworai in the action, eminently calcu- 
jated to excite the admiration and im- 
reve the manners of his cotemporaries. 
vie fhall confider the poem under three 
heads, with refpect to the invention it 
difplays, its characters, and the narration 
or ftyle. 
‘The great merit of inexhauftible in- 
vention has been univerfally allowed to 
ome 3 and though Virgil may difpute 
The Iliad. 
/ 
[March 1, 
with him the palm of judgment and tafte, 
he ts here without arival. it runs through 
all the poem, and whetherin the choice 
of incidents, of deferiptions,.or of 
images, is equally remarkable. _ The pro- 
digious number of events deferibed, of 
delineations of characters divine and hu- 
mau; the infinite variety by which they 
are all diftinguiihed; the diferent co- 
lours in which th ey are characieniltically 
drawn,—ditplay an almoft boundlefs in- 
vention. In order to give an air of dig= 
‘nity and importance to the fable, he has 
fo confiruéted it as to intereft the Gods 
themtelves, not only im the general cas 
tallapnbe, but in every particular iInci- 
dent that might either baften or retard 
tk. Db, is admirably invented -to make 
thé calamities which Agamemnon and 
the Greeks fuifered, the effect of Thetis’ 
Lene at addrefs to Jupiter, in wineh 
fhe implores venveauce on the Grecian 
army, that their leader night be fenfible 
of his injuttice to her foa Achilles, in 
depriving him of his fair captive, by 
feeling the want of his afiiftance againtt 
the Trojans. The deluding phantom 
fent by Jupiter to the tentof Atrides, in 
order to perfuade that monarch to give 
battle te the enemy, deceiving him with 
the vain hope of ending all his labours 
and dangers by one e4ort, which fheuld 
accomplifh the entire defiruétion of Troy, 
is a beautitul machine, and introduced 
with finguiar propriety. The interpofi- 
tion of Venus to refcue her fon from the 
danger of impending death, is alfo high- 
ly invented. Thé epifode of Glaucus 
aud Diomed, in the fixth book, makes 
an agrecable paufe in the narration; but 
that of Hector aud Andromache is, of 
all others, the imott deeply interefting. 
But this epifode is more properly clafted 
under Homer’s talent’ in exciting the 
pafiions, and is only mentioned in this 
place as a finely imaginedincident. We 
may add, the fivatag ‘em of Juno’s bor- 
rOW1Re the girdle of Veuus to revive the 
tenderne{s of Jupiter; and the art with 
which fhe lulls him to fleep, that Nep- 
tune in the mean time may nflift the 
Greeks,—as_ exquiite fictions of a moft 
creative | ime aginat uion. ‘The embafly to 
Acluiles, the inflex:bility of that hero, 
and the fina! extinction of his refentment 
againft Agamemnon, to naturally effected 
by the death of Patroclus, by which 
alone a reconciliation could have been 
produced cenfifieatly with his charaéter: 
thefe are a few ot thole beautitul and 
well-inveated incidents which compofe — 
fa 
iJ 
