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Let us first examin the fable of the Iliad and the Odyfly : the fubject of the first is, "the wrath of Achilles; who quarrels with Agamemnon about his miftres, and retires to a diftance, to brood over his rage. Their foes, profiting by this diffenfion, gain fome advantages; but the two chiefs being reconciled, defeat their common enemy." In the Odyfly,

Ulyffes forfakes his native country: his abfence occafions great diforders in his family: but after wandering many years, he returns to his country, kills his enemys, and re-establishes his government." I confefs that all the art of Homer was neceffary to make of fuch trifling fubjects, what he has made; but where was the neceffity of his making choice of such subjects Did not the hiftory and fable of his time offer those that were more noble and pathetic? Compare these fubjects to those which modern epic poets have treated, and judge without prejudice. Read Milton, who has defcribed the lofs of paradife and immortality; fubjects that are of all others the mott effentially interefting to human natur, and which offer the highest beautys, without having recourse to episodes and other foreign ornaments; in a word, a fubject which enables the poet, to ufe the expreffion, to becom the painter of the terreftial paradise, and all the beautys of natur. Camoens describes to us the difcovery of a new country, almost a new world, by the aid of the important art of navigation; and from this difcovery arifes the fource of the communication and commerce between the two principal parts of the Inhabited earth. Taffo paints in pleafing colors, the city of Jerufalem, which forms an object of the most profound veneration, to all who bear the name of Chriftians; and the delivery of that city, where the Saviour of the world expired on the cross, for the redemption of mankind, from the yoke of the Mahometans. M. Voltaire has drawn a model for kings and heroes, in the perfon of Henry IV. one of the greatest monarchs the earth ever produced: who by his virtues and exploits, became at onee the conqueror and the father of his people. Thefe are fubjects that appear to me to be truely great, and worthy of the majefty of an epic poem.

Let us come to the invocation: we fhall not examin here, whether it be neceffary or not; but it should feem that those which Homer has made, muft have produced a ftrange effect on the minds of his cotemporarys. He begins his Iliad with thefe words: Goddess, fing the wrath of Achilles, the son of Peleus, &c. and his Odyfly thus: Mufe, relate the adventures of that wife man, who after having ruined the facred town of Troy, wandered many years in different countrys, &c. When the poet wrote this, the pagan religion prevaild every where; and

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confequently the names Goddefs and Mufe muft have excited in the minds of the pagans different ideas, from what they do in ours, who regard their divinitys as fabulous. What shoud we say, if a poet was now to begin his work with these words: Holy virgin, fing the aurath of Charles XII. fon of Charles XI. or Saint Genivive, relate the adventures of that wife man, who, after having ruined the citys of Italy and Germany, re-established the empire of the east, &c. And what goddess is this, moreover, whom Homer invokes in his Iliad? It feems to me, that Madam Dacier was not acquainted with her; and that the matter well deferves to be clearly explained.

I think that the series of recital in a poem, fhoud be different from that of a hiftory, but in both cafes the readers natural curiofity makes him impatient to know the event: and perhaps this curiofity is ftronger in the fimple action of a poem, than in a regular hiftory, where a great number of facts fucceed each other. It seems to me, therefore, neceffary to pre. vent, by epifodes, allegorys, fimilys, &c. the drynes of narration in an epic poem; but all these ornaments require to be difpofed with difcretion, and not thrown profufely over every part. Now it appears to me, that in the poems of Homer the principal action is drowned in the epifodes and digreffions. The attention of the reader is not engaged and fufpended; but his impatience is put to the rack, and the thred of the narration is fo interrupted by thefe trifling embellishments, that his memory cannot recal the far diftant facts. Do you call these beautys that are effential to the epopea ? Or are they imperfections, or real faults? I fhall no: determin. Enlighten my understanding, Sir, if I am blind enough to take one thing for the other: but I will venture to affert, that never any man of difcernment has read, in our days, the poems of Homer quite thro without wearines.

Are all these metaphors, thefe allegorys and fimilys, moreover, difverfifyd, noble and graceful? By no means. We fee the fage Homer conftantly falling into repetitions, into low and trivial expreflions. Were I to write a differtation on these matters, I coud cite thirty verfes that contain the fame idea, and where I conjecture in the original, he makes ufe of the fame expreffions. He twenty times repeats, fometimes of his heros, and fometimes of his gods, that after they bad well eat and drank, they did fuch or fuch a thing. HandSom Funo with grey eyes, occurs in almost every page, with many other like repetitions. I am not ignorant that the patrons of Homer remark, that every judicious reader will tranfport himself in idea, to the age and place where the poet wrote, and will judge of the thoughts and expreffions, by the

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manners and customs of those distant times, which are totally different from thofe of our days. But, my dear friend, my cenfure does not fall on the images and comparisons taken from objects dependant on inconstant customs and usages, but on those that are drawn from natur, and which remain the fame in all ages and all places. Regard, I beseech you, an ox or an ass, and confider if a man of found fens coud ever make a rational and polite comparison of such stupid and clumsy animals as thofe, to gods or heroes. But fuppofe thofe fimilys and images had been noble and brilliant in the days of Homer, they certainly are not fo in our days. I will allow the cotemporarys of this poet to have thought them fublime, provided I am permitted to find them otherwise three thousand years after; and living in an age of greater learning, and of different manners, I may be allowed to fay, that I find them, neither entertaining nor inftructive. It feems to me, that when gods and heros are introduced into any work, whatever may be the religion and country of the writer, he ought not to make them talk idly, or give them the manners and fentiments of porters or futtlers, of pirates or highwaymen. Madam Dacier fays justly, that a poet can give to gods no other language than that of men; but he should not, at leaft, make them talk the languague of the meanest of mankind. On the contrary, he fhould give them that style in which Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, Crebillon, Fenelon, and fome others, make their heros and demigods difcours.

M. Voltaire fays, in his Effay on Epic Poetry; "with regard to what they call vulgar, in the heros of Homer, they may laugh as much as they pleas, at feeing Patroclus, in the ninth book of the Iliad, put three legs of mutton into a pot, light and blow the fire, and dres the dinner with Achilles. Achilles and Patroclus, are not for this the lefs illuftrious. Charles XII. king of Sweden, was his own cook for fix months, at Demir Tocca, without lofing any thing of his heroism; and the greatest part of our generals, who carry with them to the camp all the luxury of an effeminate court, will find it a hard matter to equal thefe heros who dresd their own dinners, &c."

I readily allow that Achilles and Charles XII. will be always regarded as very refpectable heros, tho the one put the mutton in the pot, and the other the fowls upon the fpit; but were I to make either of these great men the subject of an epic poem, I think I fhould act very abfurdly to infert such trifling and difinterefting anecdotes of their private life, and that my readers woud have a very good right to laugh at my expence, or at least to be disgusted with reading my relation.

It feems to me, moreover, that Madam Dacier and the other admirers of Homer, have not always a difcernment nice enough to diftinguish between the fublime and bombaft. When Jupiter, by one fneeze, makes all Olympus tremble; or when another god, to tranfport himself to a certain place, takes three steps, and at the fourth arrives at the end of the earth; I find nothing in this more fublime than in the tales of the fairys, or of the man with the blue beard and great boots, who went feven leagues at one ftride. In molt of thefe paffages which pafs for fublime, and in general, in the fineft inventions of Homer, probability, and even poffibility, physical and moral, appear to me to be violated. Read, I conjure you, the defcription which he gives, in the eighteenth book of the Iliad, of the fhield of Achilles, and judge, if it be poffible for all the adventures that he there relates to be engraved on a shield, how large foever you may fuppofe it to be and if, by the art of Vulcan, the thing were poffible, a fhield engraved with fuch minute ftrokes, when seen at a diftance, muft appear to be a piece of armour in a very bad tafte; and, at the fame time, very ridiculous. The imagination of an author must be either very barren, or extravagantly heated, who can fo illy place the accounts he would relate, or the ornaments with which he would embellifh his work. See with how much more tafte and probability, Taffo has placed the paintings of the loves of Achilles, of Hercules and Omphale, of Antony and Cleopatra, &c. over the doors. of the palace of Armida, through which Renauld was obliged to pass, to arrive at the clofet where his mistres attended him.

There are many more remarks that I could make on Homer, but I fhall here defift, for it is not my defign to enter into a controverfy, or write a differtation. Perhaps I have already faid too much. Permit me to conclude with one more reflection, which is, that the merit of an author always appears to me fufpicious, when his partifans are obliged to have recours to fo many fubtiltys to defend him. It is at leaft evident, that the beautys of his work are not univerfally pleafing; and the manifeft inequalitys that are found in the writings of this poet, have long fince given rife to that well known faying:

Interdum dormitat bonus Homerus.

From what I have here faid, do not conclude, my dear friend, that I am in the leaft diffatisfyd with you, for having recommended to me the reading of this author, Far otherwife: I owe you a great obligation; for I am at all times highly pleasd

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to becom acquainted with the arts in their origin, and with all their firft imperfections. Befide, a man must be totaly deftitute of tafte and difcernment, who does not find numberles real beautys in Homer. And this we ought to acknowledge with the fame freedom that we remark his defects. I admire, I am charmd with thofe fublime paffages I met with in this poet; but I laugh at the enthufiafm of his bigotted admirers, who would juftify all his imperfections, and who publicly accufe every one of ignorance or infincerity, who will not take that which is mean or faulty, for beautiful or fublime. Tell me, after all, I entreat you, am I right or wrong? Your judgment has fo great an authority over mine, that you will find it very ready to fubmit; for I acknowledge moft freely, that error is the lot of humanity, and efpecialy of fo weak a humanity as mine. I have the honour to be, in expectation of your anfwer, Sir, &c.'

It must be acknowledged that fome of the author's remarks on this fubject, are not void of foundation; at the fame time we cannot admit the impropriety with which the great poet is here charged, in regard to the incidents on which he erected the fables of the Iliad and Odyssey. That of the Iliad, particularly, appears to have been the most interefting with which he could have been fupplied, either by the history or tradition of thofe times; and it would be unjust to draw any inference to the prejudice of Homer, from a comparifon of the fables of the Iliad and Odyey with those which have been made choice of by fucceeding poets, who were furnished with the hiftorical incidents of near three thousand years after he had wrote. The moral of the Iliad may be applied even to monarchial governments;

Quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur achivi.

And it must have been much more interefting to the people of a country which was divided into feveral republics, and who often entered into a confederacy against the common enemy. But in fact, the noble author betrays too evident marks of prejudice on this fubject; for after informing us, in a preceding letter, that he did not underftand Greek, but had made ufe of the French translation of Madam Dacier, he has the following remarkable passage.

But what is ftill more, I am clearly convinced, that Homer did not perfectly understand his own language, and that his ftyle is not remarkably good (tho the mixture of different dialects, which runs thro his poems, appears to me odd enough) but as diétion is to thought, what dres is to a man, and as among the vulgar more than one man is admired for

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