fong, which the ear is willing to fuffer, and as it were refts upon. As the perpetual horror of combates, and a fucceffion of images of death, could not but keep the imagination very much on the ftretch; Homer has been careful to contrive fuch reliefs and paufes, as might divert the mind to fome other scene, without lofing fight of his principal object. His comparisons are the more frequent on this account; for a comparison serves this end the most effectually of any thing, as it is at once correspondent to, and differing from the fubject. Thofe criticks who fancy that the use of comparisons diftracts the attention, and draws it from the first image which fhould moft employ it, (as that we lose the idea of the battel itself, while we are led by a fimile to that of a deluge or a form :) Thofe, I fay, may as well imagine we lose the thought of the fun, when we fee his reflection in the water, where he appears more diftinctly, and is contemplated more at eafe, than if we gazed directly at his beams. For it is with the eye of the imagination as it is with our corporeal eye, it must fometimes be taken off from the object in order to see it the better. The fame criticks that are displeased to have their fancy distracted (as they call it) are yet fo inconfiftent with themselves as to object to Homer that his fimiles are too much alike, and are too often derived from the fame animal. But is it not more reasonable (according to their own notion) to compare the fame man always to the fame animal, than to fee him fometimes a fun, fometimes a tree, and fometimes a river? Tho' Homer fpeaks of the fame creature, he fo diverfifies the circumftances and accidents of the comparisons, that they always appear quite different. And to fay truth, it is not fo much the animal or the thing, as the action or posture of them that employs our imagination: Two different animals in the fame action are more like to each other, than one and the fame animal is to himself, in two different actions. And thofe who in reading Homer are shocked that 'tis always a lion, may as well be angry that 'tis always a man. What What may feem more exceptionable, is his inferting the fame comparisons in the fame words at length upon differ rent occafions, by which management he makes one fingle image afford many ornaments to feveral parts of the Poem But may not one fay Homer is in this like a fkilful impro ver, who places, a beautiful ftatue in a well-difpofed garden fo as to anfwer feveral viftas, and by that artifice one fingle figure feems multiplied into as many objects as there are openings from whence it may be viewed? What farther relieves and foftens thefe defcriptions of bat tels, is the Poet's wonderful art of introducing many pathetic circumstances about the deaths of the Heroes, which raise a different movement in the mind from what thofe images naturally infpire, I mean compaffion and pity: when he caufes us to look back upon the loft riches, poffeffions, and hopes of those who die: When he transports us to their native countries and paternal feats, to fee the griefs of, their aged fathers, the defpair and tears of their widows, or the abandoned condition of their orphans. Thus when Protefilaus falls, we are made to reflect on the lofty Palaces he left half finished; when the fons of Phanops are killed, we behold the mortifying diftrefs of their wealthy. father, who faw his eftate divided before his eyes, and taken in truft for ftrangers. When Axylus dies, we are taught to compaffionate the hard fate of that generous and hofpitable man, whofe house was the houfe of all men, and who deferved that glorious elogy of The friend of buman-kind. 1 It is worth taking notice too, what ufe Homer every where makes of each little accident or circumstance that, can naturally happen in a battel, thereby to caft a variety over his action; as well as of every turn of mind or emotion a Hero can poffibly feel, fuch as refentment, revenge, concern, confufion, &c. The former of these makes his work refemble a large hiftory piece, where even the lefs important figures and actions have yet fome convenient place or corner to be fhewn in; and the latter, gives it all the advantages of tragedy, in thofe various A 4 F1 turns turns of paffion that animate the speeches of his Heroes, and render his whole Poem the most Dramatick of any Epick whatfoever. It must alfo be obferved, that the constant machines of the Gods conduce very greatly to vary these long battels, by a continual change of the fcene from earth to heaven. Homer perceived them too neceffary for this purpose to abstain from the use of them even after Jupiter had enjoined the Deities not to act on either fide. It is remark-able how many methods he has found to draw them into every book; where if they dare not affift the warriors, at least they are very helpful to the Poet. * But there is nothing that more contributes to the va riety, furprize, and Eclat of Homer's battels, or is more perfectly admirable in itself, than that artful manner of taking measure, or (as one may fay) gaging his Heroes by each other, and thereby elevating the character of one perfon, by the oppofition of it to that of fome other whom he is made to excel. So that he many times defcribes one, only to image another, and raises one only to raife another. I cannot better exemplify this remark, than by giving an inftance in the character of Diomed that lies before me. Let us obferve by what a fcale of oppofitions he elevates this Hero, in the fifth book, first to excel all human valour, and after to rival the Gods themfelves. He diftinguishes him first from the Grecian Captains in general, each of whom he reprefents conquering a fingle Trojan, while Diomed conftantly encounters two at once; and while they are engaged each in his diftinct poft, he only is drawn fighting in every quarter, and flaughtering on every fide. Next he opposes him to Pandarus, next to Eneas, and then to Hector. So of the Gods, he fhews him first against Venus, then Apollo, then Mars, and laftly in the eighth book against Jupiter himself in the midst of his thunders. The fame conduct is obfervable more or less in regard to every perfonage of his work. This This fubordination of the Heroes is one of the caufes that make each of his battels rife above the other in greatnefs, terror, and importance, to the end of the Poem. If Diomed has performed all these wonders in the first combates, it is but to raise Hector, at whofe appearance he begins to fear. If in the next battels Hector triumphs not only over Diomed, but over Ajax and Patroclus, fets fire to the fleet, wins the armour of Achilles, and fingly eclipfes all the Heroes; in the midst of all his glory, Achilles appears, Hector flies, and is flain. The manner in which his Gods are made to act, no less advances the gradation we are speaking of. In the first battels they are feen only in fhort and feparate excurfions : Venus affifts Paris, Minerva Diomed, or Mars Hector. In the next, a clear ftage is left for Jupiter, to display his omnipotence, and turn the fate of armies alone. In the laft, all the powers of heaven are engaged and banded into regular parties, Gods encountering Gods, Jove encouraging them with his thunders, Neptune railing his tem pefts, heaven flaming, earth trembling, and Plate himself ftarting from the throne of hell. II. I am now to take notice of some cuftoms of antiquity relating to the arms and art military of those times," which are proper to be known, in order to form a right notion of our author's defcriptions of war. That Homer copied the manners and customs of the age he writ of, rather than of that he lived in, has been obferved in fome inftances. As that he no where represents cavalry or trumpets to have been used in the Trijan wars," tho' they apparently were in his own time. It is not therefore impoffible but there may be found in his works fome deficiencies in the art of war, which are not to be imputed to his ignorance, but to his judgment. Horfes had not been brought into Greece long before the fiege of Troy. They were originally Eaftern animals, and if we find at that very period fo great a number of them reckoned up in the wars of the Ifraelites, it is the lefs a wonder, confidering they came from Afia. The practice of riding them was fo little known in Greece a few years before, that they looked upon the Centaurs who first used it, as monsters compounded of men and horses. Neftor. in the first Iliad fays, he had feen these Centaurs in his youth; and Polypates in the fecond is faid to have been. born on the day that his father expelled them from Pelion, to the defarts of Ethica. They had no other use of horfes than to draw their chariots in battel; fo that whenever Homer fpeaks of fighting from an borf, taming an horfe, or the like, it is conftantly to be understood of fighting from a chariot, or taming horfes to that service. This (as we have faid) was a piece of decorum in the Poet; for in his own time they were arrived to fuch a perfection in horfemanfhip, that in the fifteenth Iliad, v. 82z. we have a fimile taken from an extraordinary feat of activity, where one man, manages four horfes at once, and leaps from the back of one to another at full speed. If we confider in what high efteem among warriors thefe, noble animals must have been at their first coming inte Greece, we fhall the lefs wonder at the frequent occafions Homer has taken to defcribe and celebrate them. It is not fo ftrange to find them fet almost upon a level with men, at a time when a borse in the prizes was of equal value with a captive, The chariots were in all probability very low. For we frequently find in the Iliad, that a person who stands erect on a chariot is killed (and fometimes by a ftroke on the head) by a foot foldier with a fword. This may. farther appear from the eafe and readincfs with which they alight or mount on every occafion; to facilitate which, the chariots were made open behind. That the wheels were but fmall, may be gueffed from a custom they had of taking them off and fetting them on, as they were laid ty, or made ufe of. Hebe in the fifth book puts on the wheels of Juno's chariot, when the calls for it in hafte: And it seems to be with allufion to the fame practice that it |