228 
fpondent on the fame important fubje&, 
m your Jaft number, attorded me great 
pleafure ; and I truft the friends of hu- 
manity will pay all proper attention to 
the encouraging arguments he fuggeits, 
”Tis even to be lamented, that fince the 
above letters appeared in your excellent 
Mifcellany, this country, and mankind 
in general, have lof the moft diftin- 
guifhed champion of civil and religious 
liberty, and by confequence of humanity, 
wlich latter ages has produced. But, 
furely, his mantle is lett behind, and 
has infpired his friends with fome portion 
ef his humane benevolent fpirit. Thofe 
who with to abolifh the flave-trade, will, 
even for confiltency’s fake, wilh to pre- 
vent all wanton acts of cruelty towards 
the brute creation. 
ouly half done and imperfect, if this is 
omitted, 
The prefent time is peculiarly favour- 
able for fuch humane efforts. A new 
parliament will foon meet, in the election 
of which (according to your, ftatement, 
p- 387,) the friends of liberty, and of 
courfe of humanity, have molt laudably 
and juccefsfully exerted themfelves. 
Surely then a new parliament, and in 
their firft feffions too, will not refule to 
pals a law fo congenial to the very firlt 
requirements of our holy religion, and 
-the want of which is afluredly a national 
difgrace ! 
Tam, Sir, your’s, &c. 
Nov. 7, 1806. 
ae ae 
LYC/EUM OF ANCIENT LITERA- 
TURE.—No. [V. 
THE ILIAD. 
NDER the fame head of charac- 
ters, we are now ‘tu notice the 
gods of Homer, or his machinery. This, 
as we have already obferved, 15 confider- 
ed the moeft dificult part of the epic. 
In the Iliad it forms a very confiderable 
part of the poem, and for this reafon 
Homer is become the ftandard of poetic 
theology. It is evident, that this ma- 
chinery was not invented by him. It is, 
therefore, with great injuitice, that he 
has been accufed of having debafed the 
religion of his country, by reprefenting 
its deities under the moft difgraceful co- 
lours, and fubject to all the infirmities 
aod patlions of the human race. ‘This 
has been urged againft him by La Motte, 
a cold declamatory writer, who, without 
_ ene poetical fpark in his own compofition, 
was unwilling to praife it in others, and 
eager to condemn every deviation from 
t ; 
Their work will be: 
SENEX, 
Lyceum of Ancient Literature—No. IV. [April 1, 
propriety, however beautiful. To this 
objection Fenelon has very properly an- 
fwered, that Homer did net create the 
gods whom he has introduced in his 
poem, but has deferibed them as he 
found them. His mythology was, no 
doubt, the mythology of Greece, and he. 
only followed the traditions of his coun- 
try. The era of the Trojan war ap 
proached the age of the gods and demi- 
gods. Several of the heroes concerned 
in that war were reputed to be the chil- 
dren of thefe gods. Of courfe, the tra- 
ditionary tales relating to them were 
blended with the fables of the deities. 
Thefe popular legends Homer adopted ; 
and in his hands they produce a fine ef- 
fect. His fyftem of machinery, often 
lofty and magnificent, is always iprightly 
aud amufing. It adds contiderably to 
the number of his perfonages; and the 
very circumftance with which he is re- 
proached of having given to his divine 
characters a mixture of human frailties, 
by rendering them as interefting to the 
reader as the human actors, increafes 
the intereft. of the poem. His battles, 
his councils, and his defcriptions, are 
-divertified by the frequent intervention 
of the gods ; and the alternate tranfi- 
tions from earth to heaven, and from 
heaven to earth, give relief to the mind 
in fuch a continued fcene of blood and 
flaughter. 
If the mythology of Homer was not 
invented by him, tne ufe he has made of 
it is entirely his own. But though he 
has employed his celettial machinery, in 
general, with admirable art and judg- 
ment, yet in fome inttances it cannot be 
denied that he has tranfgreffled the weil- 
known rule of Horace : 
Nec Deus interfit, nifi dignus vindice nodus 
Inciderit. 
The gods are introduced upon the’ ftage 
more frequently than is neceilary, and 
are often employed in offices too frivo- 
lous and below the dignity of their na- . 
ture. To exemplify this obfervaticn by 
one inftance: it appears to be no very 
honourable function fer Minerva, to be- 
come the charioteer of Diomed; but 
when fhe is defcribed as afluming the 
reins, and plying tle lath, her divinity 
is abfolutely degraded. ‘There are occa- 
fionally trifling, and even ridiculous, al- 
tercations among the gods, particularly 
the quarrel between Jupiter and Juno. 
Tt mutt alfo be admitted, that notwith- 
ftanding the credulity of the Greeks, and 
the extentive licence of fiction which 
their 
