infinitely superior in this point the invention of Homer was to that of all others.

The Speeches are to be confidered as they flow from the characters, being perfect or defective as they agree or disagree with the manners of those who utter them. As there is more variety of characters in the Iliad, fo there is of fpeeches, than in any other poem. Every thing in it has manners (as Ariftotle expreffes it) that is, every thing is acted or spoken. It is hardly credible in a work of fuch length, how small a number of lines are employed in narration. In Virgil the dramatic part is lefs in proportion to the narrative; and the fpeeches often confift of general reflections or thoughts, which might be equally juft in any perfon's mouth upon the fame occafion. As many of his perfons have no apparent characters, so many of his speeches escape being applied and judged by the rule of propriety. We oftner think of the author himself when we read Virgil, than when we are engaged in Homer: All which are the effects of a colder invention, that interefts us less in the action described: Homer makes us hearers, and Virgil leaves us readers.

If in the next place we take a view of the fentiments, the fame prefiding faculty is eminent in the fublimity and spirit of his thoughts. Longinus has given his opinion, that it was in this part Homer principally excelled. What were alone fufficient to prove the grandeur and excellence of his sentiments in general, is, that they have fo remarkable a parity with thofe of the Scripture: Duport, in his Gnomologia Homerica, has collected innumerable inftances of this fort. And it is with juftice an excellent modern writer allows, that if Virgil has not fo many thoughts that are low and vulgar, he has not fo many that are fublime and noble; and that the Roman author feldom rifes in

to

to very astonishing fentiments where he is not fired by the Iliad.

If we obferve his defcriptions, images, and fimiles, we fhall find the invention still predominant. To what else can we ascribe that vast comprehenfion of images of every fort, where we fee each circumstance of art, and individual of nature fummoned together, by the extent and fecundity of his imagination; to which all things, in their various views, prefented themselves in an inftant, and had their impreffions taken off to perfection at a heat? Nay, he not only gives us the full profpects of things, but feveral unexpected peculiarities and fide views, unobferved by any Painter but Homer. Nothing is fo furprifing as the defcriptions of his battles, which take up no lefs than half the Iliad, and are fupplied with fo vaft a variety of incidents, that no one bears a likeness to another; fuch different kinds of deaths, that no two heroes are wounded in the fame manner; and fuch a profufion of noble ideas, that every battle rifes above the last in greatness, horror, and confufion. It is certain there is not near that number of images and defcriptions in any Epic Poet; though every one has affifted himself with a great quantity out of him: And it is evident of Virgil efpecially, that he has fcarce any comparisons which are not drawn from his mafter.

If we descend from hence to the expreffion, we fee the bright imagination of Homer fhining out in the most enlivened forms of it. We acknowledge him the father of poetical diction, the firft who taught that language of the Gods to men.

His expreffion is like the colouring of fome great mafters, which discovers itself to be laid on boldly, and executed with rapidity. It is indeed the strongest and moft glowing imaginable, and touched with the greatest fpirit. Ariftotle had reason to say, He 1 X 2

was

was the only poet who had found out living words ;
there are in him more daring figures and meta-
phors than in any good author whatever.
An ar-
row is impatient to be on the wing, a weapon
thirfts to drink the blood of an enemy, and the
like. Yet his expreffion is never too big for the
fenfe, but juftly great in proportion to it. 'Tis
the fentiment that fweils and fills out the diction,
which rises with it, and forms itself about it: And
in the fame degree that a thought is warmer, an
expreffion will be brighter; as that is more strong,
this will become more confpicuous: Like glass in
the furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude
and refines to a greater clearness, only as the
breath within is more powerful, and the heat more
intenfe.

'L

To throw his language more out of profe, Homer feems to have affected the compound epithets. This was a fort of compofition peculiarly proper to poetry, not only as it heighten'd the diction, but as it affifted and filled the numbers with greater found and pomp, and likewife conduced in fome measure to thicken the images. On this laft confideration I cannot but attribute these alfo to the fruitfulness of his invention, fince (as he has managed them) they are a fort of fupernumerary pictures of the perfons or things to which they are joined. We fee the motion of Hector's plumes in the epithet Kogutaíon, the landscape of mount Neritus in that of Eivocíquaa, and fo of others, which particular images could not have been infifted upon fo long as to exprefs them in a defcription (tho' but of a fingle line) without diverting the reader too much from the principal action or figure. Ast a Metaphor is a fhort fimile, one of thefe Epithets is a fhort defcription.

Laftly, if we confider his versification, we shall be fenfible what a fhare of praife is due to his in

vention in that. He was not fatisfy'd with his language as he found it fettled in any one part of Greece, but fearch'd thro' its differing dialects with this particular view, to beautify and perfect his numbers: He confider'd these as they had a greater mixture of vowels or confonants, and accordingly employed them as the verfe required either a greater fmoothnefs or ftrength. What he most affected was the lonic, which has a peculiar fweetnefs from its never ufing contractions, and from its custom of refolving the diphthongs into two fyllables; fo as to make the words open themselves with a more spreading and fonorous fluency. With this he mingled the Attic contractions, the broader Doric, and the feebler Eòlic, which often rejects its afpirate, or takes off its accent; and compleated this variety by altering fome letters with the licence of poetry. Thus his measures, inftead of being fetters to his fenfe, were always in readiness to run along with the warmth of his rapture, and even to give a further representation of his notions, in the correspondence of their founds to what they fignified. Out of all these he has derived that harmony, which makes us confefs he had not only the richest head, but the fineft ear in the world. This is fo great a truth, that whoever will but confult the tune of his verses, even without understanding them (with the fame fort of diligence as we daily fee practifed in the cafe of Italian Operas) will find more fweetnefs, variety, and majefty of found, than in any other language or poetry. The beauty of his numbers is allowed by the criticks to be copied but faintly by Virgil himself, though they are so just to afcribe it to the nature of the Latin tongue: Indeed the Greek has fome advantages both from the natural found of its words, and the turn and cadence of its verfe, which agree with the genius of no other language. Virgil was 1 X 3

very

very fenfible of this, and used the utmost diligence in working up a more intractable language to whatsoever graces it was capable of; and in particular never failed to bring the found of his line to a beautiful agreement with its fenfe. If the Grecian poet has not been fo frequently celebrated on this account as the Roman, the only reafon is, that fewer criticks have understood one language than the other. Dionyfius of Halicarnaffus has pointed out many of our author's beauties in this kind, in his treatise of the Compofition of Words, and others will be taken notice of in the courfe of my Notes. It fuffices at present to obferve of his numbers, that they flow with fo much eafe, as to make one imagine Homer had no other care than to transcribe as faft as the Mufes dictated; and at the fame time with fo much force and infpiriting vigour, that they awaken and raife us like the found of a trumpet. They roll along as a plentiful river, always in motion, and always full; while we are borne away by a tide of verse, the most rapid, and yet the most smooth imaginable.

Thus on whatever fide we contemplate Homer, what principally ftrikes us is his invention. It is that which forms the character of each part of his work; and accordingly we find it to have made his fable more extenfive and copious than any other, his manners more lively and strongly marked, his speeches more affecting and tranfported, his fentiments more warm and fublime, his images and defcriptions more full and animated, his expreffion more rais'd and daring, and his numbers more rapid and various. I hope, in what has been faid of Virgil, with regard to any of thefe heads, I have no way derogated from his character. Nothing is more abfurd or endless, than the common method of comparing eminent writers by an op

pofition