Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Lecture XLIII — Homer's Iliad and Odyssey — Virgil's Aeneid
As the epic poem is universally allowed to possess the highest rank among poetical works, it merits a particular discussion. Having treated of the nature of this composition, and the principal rules relating to it, I proceed to make some observations on the most distinguished epic poems, ancient and modern.
Homer claims, on every account, our first attention, as the father not only of epic poetry, but, in some measure, of poetry in general. Whoever sits down to read Homer, must consider that he is going to read the most ancient book in the world, next to the Bible. Without making this reflection, he cannot enter into the spirit, nor relish the composition of the author. He is not to look for the correctness and elegance of the Augustan age. He must divest himself of our modern ideas of dignity and refinement, and transport his imagination almost three thousand years back in the history of mankind. What he is to expect, is a picture of the ancient world. He must reckon upon finding characters and manners, that retain a considerable tincture of the savage state; moral ideas, as yet imperfectly formed; and the appetites and passions of men brought under none of those restraints to which, in a more advanced state of society, they are accustomed; but bodily strength prized as one of the chief heroic endowments; the preparing of a meal, and the appeasing hunger, described as very interesting objects; and the heroes boasting of themselves openly, scolding one another outrageously, and glorying, as we should now think very indecently, over their fallen enemies.
The opening of the Iliad possesses none of that sort of dignity, which a modern looks for in a great epic poem. It turns on no higher subject, than the quarrel of two chieftains about a female slave. The priest of Apollo beseeches Agamemnon to restore his daughter, who, in the plunder of a city, had fallen to Agamemnon’s share of booty. He refuses. Apollo, at the prayer of his priest, sends a plague into the Grecian camp. The augur, when consulted, declares that there is no way of appeasing Apollo, but by restoring the daughter of his priest. Agamemnon is enraged at the augur; professes that he likes this slave better than his wife Clytemnestra; but since he must restore her, in order to save the army, insists to have another in her place; and pitches upon Briseis, the slave of Achilles. Achilles, as was to be expected, kindles into a rage at this demand; reproaches him for his rapacity and insolence, and after giving him many hard names, solemnly swears, that, if he is to be thus treated by the general, he will withdraw his troops, and assist the Grecians no more against the Trojans. He withdraws accordingly. His mother, the goddess Thetis, interests Jupiter in his cause; who, to revenge the wrong which Achilles had suffered, takes part against the Greeks, and suffers them to fall into great and long distress; until Achilles is pacified, and reconciliation brought about between him and Agamemnon.
Such is the basis of the whole action of the Iliad. Hence rise all those ‘ speciosa miracula,’ as Horace terms them, which fill that extraordinary poem; and which have had the power of interesting almost all the nations of Europe, during every age, since the days of Homer. The general admiration commanded by a poetical plan, so very different from what any one would have formed in our times, ought not, upon reflection, to be matter of surprise. For, besides that a fertile genius can enrich and beautify any subject on which it is employed, it is to be observed, that ancient manners, how much soever they contradict our present notions of dignity and refinement, afford, nevertheless, materials for poetry, superior, in some respects, to those which are furnished by a more polished state of society. They discover human nature more open and undisguised, without any of those studied forms of behaviour which now conceal men from one another. They give free scope to the strongest and most impetuous emotions of the mind, which make a better figure in description than calm and temperate feelings. They show us our native prejudices, appetites, and desires, exerting themselves without control. From this state of manners, joined with the advantage of that strong and expressive style, which, as I formerly observed, commonly distinguishes the compositions of early ages, we have ground to look for more of the boldness, ease, and freedom of native genius, in compositions of such a period, than in those of more civilized times. And, accordingly, the two great characters of the Homeric poetry are fire and simplicity. Let us now proceed to make some more particular observations on the Iliad, under the three heads of the subject and action, the characters, and narration of the poet.
The subject of the Iliad must unquestionably be admitted to be, in the main, happily chosen. In the days of Homer, no object could be more splendid and dignified than the Trojan war. So great a confederacy of the Grecian states, under one leader, and the ten years’ siege which they carried on against Troy, must have spread far abroad the renown of many military exploits, and interested all Greece in the traditions concerning the heroes who had most eminently signalized themselves. Upon these traditions Homer grounded his poem; and though he lived, as is generally believed, only two or three centuries after the Trojan war, yet, through the want of written records, tradition must, by this time, have fallen into the degree of obscurity most proper for poetry; and have left him at full liberty to mix as much fable as he pleased with the remains of true history. He has not chosen for his subject the whole Trojan war; but, with great judgment, he has selected one part of it, the quarrel betwixt Achilles and Agamemnon, and the events to which that quarrel gave rise; which, though they take up forty-seven days only, yet included the most interesting and most critical period of the war. By this management, he has given greater unity to what would have otherwise been an unconnected history of battles. He has gained one hero, or principal character, Achilles, who reigns throughout the work; and he has shown the pernicious effect of discord among confederated princes. At the same time, I admit that Homer is less fortunate in his subject than Virgil. The plan of the iEneid includes a greater compass, and a more agreeable diversity of events; whereas the Iliad is almost entirely filled with battles.
The praise of high invention has, in every age, been given to Homer, with the greatest reason. The prodigious number of incidents, of speeches, of characters divine and human, with which he abounds; the surprising variety with which he has diversified his battles, in the wounds and deaths, and little history pieces of almost all the persons slain, discover an invention next to boundless. But the praise of judgment is, in my opinion, no less due to Homer, than that of invention. His story is all along conducted with great art. He rises upon us gradually; his heroes are brought out, one after another, to be objects of our attention. The distress thickens, as the poem advances; and every thing is so contrived as to aggrandize Achilles, and to render him, as the poet intended he should be, the capital figure.
But that wherein Homer excels all writers is the characteristical part. Here he is without a rival. His lively and spirited exhibition of characters is, in a great measure, owing to his being so dramatic a writer, abounding every where with dialogue and conversation. There is much more dialogue in Homer than in Virgil: or, indeed, than in any other poet. What Virgil informs us of by two words of narration, Homer brings about by a speech. We may observe here, that this method of writing is more ancient than the narrative manner. Of this we have a clear proof in the books of the Old Testament, which, instead of narration, abound with speeches, with answers and replies, upon the most familiar subjects. Thus, in the book of Genesis: ‘Joseph said unto his brethren, Whence come ye? and they answered, From the land of Canaan we come to buy food. And Joseph said, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land are ye come. And they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food are thy servants come; we are all one man’s sons, we are true men, thy servants are no spies. And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan; and behold, the youngest is this day with our father; and one is not. And Joseph said unto them; This it is that I spake unto you, saying, ye are spies. Hereby ye shall be proved; by the life of Pharaoh, ye shall not go forth, except your youngest .brother come hither,’ &c. Genesis xlii. 7—15. Such a style as this, is the most simple and artless form of writing, and must, therefore, undoubtedly, have been the most ancient. It is copying directly from nature; giving a plain rehearsal of what passed, or was supposed to pass, in conversation between the persons of whom the author treats. In progress of time, when the art of writing was more studied, it was thought more elegant to compress the substance of conversation into short distinct narrative, made by the historian in his own person; and to reserve direct speeches for solemn occasions only.
The ancient dramatic method which Homer practised has some
advantages, balanced with some defects. It renders composition more natural and animated, and more expressive of manners and characters; but withal less grave and majestic, and sometimes tiresome. Homer, it must be admitted, has carried his propensity to the making of speeches too far; and if he be tedious any where, it is in these; some of them trifling, and some of them plainly unseasonable. Together with the Greek vivacity, he leaves upon our minds some impression of the Greek loquacity also. His speeches, however, are upon the whole characteristic and lively; and to them we owe, in a great measure, that admirable display which he has given of human nature. Every one who reads him, becomes familiarly and intimately acquainted with his heroes. We seem to have lived among them, and to have conversed with them. Not only has he pursued the single virtue of courage through all its different forms and features, in his different warriors; but some more delicate characters, into which courage either enters not at all, or but for an inconsiderable part, he has drawn with singular art.
How finely, for instance, has he painted the character of Helen, so as, notwithstanding her frailty and her crimes, to prevent her from being an odious object! The admiration with which the old generals behold her, in the third book, when she is coming towards them, presents her to us with much dignity. Her veiling herself and shedding tears, her confusion in the presence of Priam, her grief and self-accusations at the sight of Menelaus, her upbraiding Paris for his cowardice, and, at the same time, her returning fondness for him, exhibit the most striking features of that mixed female character, which we partly condemn, and partly pity. Homer never introduces her without making her say something to move our compassion: while, at the same time, he takes care to contrast her character with that of a virtuous matron, in the chaste and tender Andromache.
Paris himself, the author of all the mischief, is characterized with the utmost propriety. He is, as we should expect him, a mixture of gallantry and effeminacy. He retreats from Menelaus, on his first appearance; but, immediately afterwards, enters into single combat with him. He is a great master of civility, remarkably courteous in his speeches; and receives all the reproofs of his brother Hector with modesty and deference. He is described as a person of elegance and taste. He was the architect of his own palace. He is, in the sixth book, found by Hector, burnishing and dressing up his armour; and issues forth to battle with a peculiar gayety and ostentation of appearance, which is illustrated by one of the finest comparisons in all the Iliad, that of the horse prancing to the river.
Homer has been blamed for making his hero Achilles of too brutal and unamiable a character. But I am inclined to think, that injustice is commonly done to Achilles upon the credit of two lines of Horace, who has certainly overloaded his character.
Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,
Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis. A. P. 121.
' Achilles is passionate, indeed, to a great degree; but he is far from being a contemner of laws and justice. In the contest with Agamemnon, though he carries it on with too much heat, yet he has reason on his side. He was notoriously wronged; but he submits, and resigns Briseis peaceably, when the heralds come to demand her; only he will fight no longer under the command of a leader who had affronted him. Besides his wonderful bravery and contempt of death, he has several other qualities of a hero. He is open and sincere. He loves his subjects, and respects the gods. He is distinguished by strong friendships and attachments; he is throughout, high-spirited, gallant, and honourable; and allowing for a degree of ferocity which belonged to the times, and enters into the characters of most of Homer’s heroes, he is, upon the whole, abundantly fitted to raise high admiration, though not pure esteem.
Under the head of characters, Homer’s gods, or his machinery, according to the critical term, come under consideration. The gods make a great figure in the Iliad; much greater indeed than they do in the JEneid, or in any other epic poem; and hence Homer has become the standard of poetic theology. Concerning machinery in general, I delivered my sentiments in the former lecture. Concerning Homer’s machinery, in particular, we must observe, that it was not his own invention. Like every other good poet, he unquestionably followed the traditions of his country. The age of the Trojan war approached the age of the gods and demi-gods in Greece. Several of the heroes concerned in that war were reputed to be the children of these gods. Of course, the traditionary tales relating to them, and to the exploits of that age, were blended with the fables of the deities. These popular legends Homer very properly adopted; though it is perfectly absurd to infer from this, that therefore poets arising in succeeding ages, and writing on quite different subjects, are obliged to follow the same system of machinery.
In the hands of Homer, it produces, on the whole, a noble effect; it is always gay and amusing; often lofty and magnificent. It introduces into his poem a great number of personages, almost as much distinguished by characters as his human actors. It diversifies his battles greatly, by the intervention of the gods; and by frequently shifting the scene from earth to heaven, it gives an agreeable relief to the mind, in the midst of so much blood and slaughter. Homer’s gods, it must be confessed, though they be always lively and animated figures, yet sometimes want dignity. The conjugal contentions between Juno and Jupiter, with which he entertains us, and the indecent squabbles he describes among the inferior deities, according as they take different sides with the contending parties, would be very improper models for any modern poet to imitate. In apology for Homer, however, it must be remembered, that according to the fables of those, days, the gods are but one remove above the condition of men. They have all the human passions. They drink and feast, and are vulnerable like men; they have children and kinsmen in the opposite armies; and except that they are immortal, that they have houses on the top of Olympus, and winged chariots, in which they are often flying down to earth, and then reascending, in order to feast on nectar and ambrosia; they are in truth no higher beings than the human heroes, and therefore very fit to take part in their contentions. At the same time, though Homer so frequently degrades his divinities, yet he knows how to make them appear, in some conjunctures, with the most awful majesty. Jupiter, the father of gods and men, is, for the most part, introduced with great dignity; and several of the most sublime conceptions in the Iliad are founded on the appearances of Neptune, Minerva, and Apollo, on great occasions.
With regard to Homer’s style and manner of writing, it is easy, natural, and in the highest degree animated. It will be admired only as relish ancient simplicity, and can make allowance for certain negligences and repetitions, which greater refinement in the art of writing has taught succeeding, though far inferior, poets to avoid. For Homer is the most simple in his style of all the great poets, and resembles most the style of the poetical parts of the Old Testament. They can have no conception of his manner, who are acquainted with him in Mr. Pope’s translation only. An excellent poetical performance that translation is, and faithful in the main to the original. In some places, it may be thought to have even improved Homer. It has certainly softened some of his rudenesses, and added delicacy and grace to some of his sentiments. But withal, it is no other than Homer modernized. In the midst of the elegance and luxuriancy of Mr. Pope’s language, we lose sight of the old bard’s simplicity. I know indeed no author, to whom it is more difficult to do justice in a translation, than Homer. As the plainness of his diction, were it literally rendered, would often appear flat in any modern language; so, in the midst of that plainness, and not a little heightened by it, there are every where breaking forth upon us flashes of native fire, of sublimity and beauty, which hardly any language, except his own, could preserve. His versification has been universally acknowledged to be uncommonly melodious; and to carry, beyond that of any poet, a resemblance in the sound to the sense and meaning.
In narration, Homer is, at all times, remarkably concise, which renders him lively and agreeable; though, in his speeches, as I have before admitted, sometimes tedious. He is every where descriptive; and descriptive by means of those well chosen particulars which form the excellency of description. Virgil gives us the nod of Jupiter with great magnificence:
Annuit, et totum nutu tremefecit Olympum. IX. 106.
But Homer, in describing the same thing, gives us the sable eye-brows of Jupiter bent, and his ambrosial curls shaken, at the moment when he gives the nod; and thereby renders the figure more natural and lively. Whenever he seeks to draw our attention to some interesting object, he particularizes it so happily, as to paint it in a manner to our sight. The shot of Pandarus’s arrow, which broke the truce between the two armies, as related in the fourth book, may be given for an instance; and above all, the admirable interview of Hector with Andromache, in the sixth book: where all the circumstances of conjugal and parental tenderness, the child affrighted with the view of his father’s helmet and crest, and clinging to the nurse; Hector putting off his helmet, taking the child into his arms, and offering up a prayer for him to the gods; Andromache receiving back the child with a smile of pleasure, and at the same instant bursting into tears, δακρυόεν γελάσασα, as it is finely expressed in the original, form the most natural and affecting picture that can possibly be imagined.
In the description of battles, Homer particularly excels. He works up the hurry, the terror, and confusion of them in so masterly a manner, as to place the reader in the very midst of the engagement. * It is here, that the fire of his genius is most highly displayed; insomuch that Virgil’s battles, and indeed those of most other poets, are cold and inanimate in comparison of Homer’s.
With regard to similes; no poet abounds so much with them. Several of them are beyond doubt extremely beautiful: such as those of the fires in the Trojan camp compared to the moon and stars by night; Paris going forth to battle, to the war-horse prancing to the river; and Euphorbus slain, to the flowering shrub cut down by a sudden blast: all which are among the finest poetical passages that are any where to be found. I am not, however, of opinion that Homer’s comparisons, taken in general, are his greatest beauties.
They come too thick upon us; and often interrupt the train of his narration or description. The resemblance on which they are founded, is sometimes not clear; and the objects whence they are taken are too uniform. His lions, bulls, eagles, and herds of sheep recur too frequently; and the allusions in some of his similes, even after the allowances that are to be made for ancient manners,, must be admitted to be debasing.*
My observations, hitherto, have been made upon the Iliad only. It is necessary to take some notice of the Odyssey also. Longinus’s criticism upon it is not without foundation, that Homer may in this poem be compared to the setting sun, whose grandeur still remains without the heat of his meridian beams. It wants the vigour and sublimity of the Iliad; yet, at the same time, possesses so many beauties, as to be justly entitled to high praise. It is a very amusing poem, and has much greater variety than the Iliad; it contains many interesting stories, and beautiful descriptions. We see every where the same descriptive and dramatic genius, and the same fertility of invention that appears in the other work. It descends indeed from the dignity of gods, and heroes, and warlike achievements; but in recompense we have more pleasing pictures of ancient manners. Instead of that ferocity which reigns in the Iliad, the Odyssey presents us with the most amiable images of hospitality and humanity; entertains us with many a wonderful adventure, and many a landscape of nature; and instructs us by a constant vein of morality and virtue, which runs through the poem.
At the same time there are some defects which must be acknowledged in the Odyssey. Many scenes in it fall below the majesty which we naturally expect in an epic poem. The last twelve books, after Ulysses is landed in Ithaca, are, in several parts, tedious and languid; and though the discovery which Ulysses makes of himself to his nurse, Euryclea, and his interview with Penelope, before she knows him, in the nineteenth book, are tender and affecting, yet
* The severest critic upon Homer in modern times, M. la Motte, admits all that his admirers urge for the superiority of his genius and talents as a poet: “ C’étoit un génie naturellement poétique, ami des fables et des merveilleux, et porté en général à l’imitation, soit des ohjets de la nature, soit des sentimens et des actions des hommes. Il avoit l’esprit vaste et fecond; plus eleve que delicat, plus naturel qu’ingénieux, et plus amoureux de 1’abondance que du choix—II a saisi, par une supériorité de goût, les premières idées de l’eloquence dans toutes les genres^’ il a parle le langage de toutes les passions; et il a du moins ouvert aux 6crivains qui doivent le suivre une infinity de routes, qu’il ne restoit plus qu’k applanir. 11 y a apparence qu’en quelques temps qu’Homère eût vécu, il eut ete, du moins, le plus grand poète de son pays: et k ne le prendre que dans ce sens, on peut dire, qu’il est le maitr&. de ceux memes qui Font surpasse.—Discours sur Homere. (Euvres de la Motte, tome ii. After these high praises of the author, he indeed endeavours to bring the merit of the Iliad very low. But his principal objections turn on the debasing ideas which are there given of the gods, the gross characters and manners of the heroes, and the imperfect morality of the sentiments; which, as Voltaire observes, is like accusing a painter for having drawn his figures in the dress of the times. Homer painted his gods such as popular tradition then represented them; and describes such characters and sentiments, as he found among those with whom he lived the poet does not seem happy in the great anagnorisis, or the discovery of Ulysses to Penelope. She is too cautious and distrustful, and we are disappointed of the surprise of joy, which we expected on that high occasion.
After having said so much of the father of epic poetry, it is now time to proceed to Virgil, who has a character clearly marked, and quite distinct from that of Homer. As the distinguishing excellencies of the Iliad are simplicity and fire; those of the iEneid are, elegance and tenderness. Virgil is, beyond doubt, less animated and less sublime than Homer; but, to counterbalance this, he has fewer negligences, greater variety, and supports more of a correct and regular dignity, throughout his work.
When we begin to read the Iliad, we find ourselves in the region of the most remote, and even unrefined antiquity. When we open the iEneid, we discover all the correctness, and the improvements, of the Augustan age. We meet with no contentions of heroes about a female slave, no violent scolding, nor abusive language; but the poem opens with the utmost magnificence; with Juno, forming designs for preventing iEneas’s establishment in Italy, and iEneas himself presented to us with all his fleet, in the middle of a storm, which is described in the highest style of poetry.
The subject of the iEneid is extremely happy; still more so, in my opinion, than either of Homer’s poems. As nothing could be more noble, nor carry more of epic dignity, so nothing could be more flattering and interesting to the Roman people, than Virgil’s deriving the origin of their state from so famous a hero as iEneas. The object was splendid in itself; it gave the poet a theme, taken from the ancient traditionary history of his own country; it allowed him to connect his subject with Homer’s stories, and to adopt all his mythology; it afforded him the opportunity of frequently glancing at all the future great exploits of the Romans, and of describing Italy, and the very territory of Rome, in its ancient and fabulous state. The establishment of iEneas, constantly traversed by Juno, leads to a great diversity of events, of voyages, and wars; and furnishes a proper intermixture of the incidents of peace with martial exploits. Upon the whole, I believe, there is no where to be found so complete a model of an epic fable, or story, as Virgil’s iEneid.
I see no foundation for the opinion, entertained by some critics, that the iEneid is to be considered as an allegorical poem, which carries a constant reference to the character and reign of Augustus Caesar; or, that Virgil’s main design in composing the iEneid, was to reconcile the Romans to the government of that prince, who is supposed to be shadowed out under the character of iEneas. Virgil, indeed, like the other poets of that age, takes every opportunity which his subject affords him, of paying court to Augustus.* But, to imagine that he carried a political plan in his view, through the whole poem, appears to me no more than a fanciful refinement. He had sufficient
As particularly in that noted passage of the sixth book, 1. 792 Hic vir, hic est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis, &c.
motives, as a poet, to determine him to the choice of his subject, from its being, in itself, both great and pleasing; from its being suited to his genius, and its being attended with the peculiar advantages, which I mentioned above, for the full display of poetical talents.
Unity of action is perfectly preserved; as, from beginning to end, one main object is always kept in view, the settlement ‘of Eneas in Italy, by the order of the gods. As the story comprehends the transactions of several years, part of the transactions are very properly thrown into a recital made by the hero. The episodes are linked with sufficient connexion to the main subject; and the nodus, or intrigue of the poem, is, according to the plan of ancient machinery, happily formed. The wrath of Juno, who opposes herself to the Trojan settlement in Italy, gives rise to all the difficulties which obstruct Eneas’s undertaking, and connects the human with the celestial operations, throughout the whole work. Hence arise the tempest which throws Eneas upon the shore of Africa; ‘the passion of Dido, who endeavours to detain him at Carthage; and the efforts of Turnus, who opposes him in war. Till, at last, upon a composition made with Jupiter, that the Trojan name shall be for ever sunk in the Latin, Juno foregoes her resentment, and the hero becomes victorious.
In these main points, Virgil has conducted his work with great propriety, and shown his art and judgment. But the admiration due to so eminent a poet, must not prevent us from remarking some other particulars in which he has failed. First, there are scarce any characters marked in the Eneid. In this respect it is insipid, when compared to the Iliad, which is full of characters and life. Achates, and Cloanthus, and Gyas, and the rest of the Trojan heroes, who accompanied .Eneas into Italy, are so many undistinguished figures, who are in no way made known to us, either by any sentiments which they utter, or any memorable exploits which they perform. Even Eneas himself is not a very interesting hero. He is described, indeed, as pious and brave; but his character is not marked with any of those strokes that touch the heart; it is a sort of cold and tame character; and throughout his behaviour to Dido, in the fourth book, especially in the speech ‘which he makes after she suspected his intention of leaving her, there appears a certain hardness and want of relenting, which is far from rendering him amiable.* Dido’s own character is by much the best supported in the whole Eneid. The warmth of her passions, the keenness of her indignation and resentment, and the violence of her whole character, exhibit a figure greatly more animated than any other which Virgil has drawn.
Besides this defect of character in the Eneid, the distribution and management of the subject are, in some respects, exceptionable. The Eneid, it is true, must be considered with the indul-
* Num fletu ingemuit nostro? num lumina flexit?
Num lacrimas victus dedit, aut miserata amantem est? iEn. iv. 369.
gence due to a work not thoroughly completed. The six last books are said not to have received the finishing hand of the author; and for this reason, he ordered, by his will, the iEneid to be committed to the flames. But though this may account for incorrectness of execution, it does not apologize for a falling off in the subject, which seems to take place in the latter part of the work. The wars with the Latins are inferior, in point of dignity, to the more interesting objects which had before been presented to us in the destruction of Troy, the intrigue with Dido, and the descent into hell. And in those Italian wars, there is, perhaps, a more material fault still, in the conduct of the story. The reader, as Voltaire has observed, is tempted to take part with Turnus against iEneas. Turnus, a brave young prince, in love with Lavinia, his near relation, is destined for her by general consent, and highly favoured by her mother. Lavinia herself discovers no reluctance to the match: when there arrives a stranger, a fugitive from a distant region, who had never seen her, and who, founding a claim to an establishment in Italy upon oracles and prophecies, embroils the country in war, kills the lover of Lavinia, and proves the occasion of her mother’s death. Such a plan is not fortunately laid for disposing us to be favourable to the hero of the poem; and the defect might have been easily remedied, by the poet’s making iEneas, instead of distressing Lavinia, deliver her from the persecution of some rival who was odious to her, and to the whole country.
But notwithstanding these defects, which it was necessary to remark, Virgil possesses beauties which have justly drawn the admiration of ages, and which,- to this day, hold the balance in equilibrium between his fame and that of Homer. The principal and distinguishing excellency of Virgil, and which, in my opinion, he possesses beyond all poets, is tenderness. Nature had endowed him with exquisite sensibility; he felt every affecting circumstance in the scenes he describes; and, by a single stroke, he knows how to reach the heart. This, in an epic poem, is the merit next to sublimity; and puts it in an author’s power to render his composition extremely interesting to all readers.
The chief beauty of this kind in the Iliad, is, the interview of Hector with Andromache. But in the iEneid, there are many such. The second book is one of the greatest masterpieces that ever was executed by any hand; and Virgil seems to have put forth there the whole strength of his genius, as the subject afforded a variety of scenes, both of the awful and tender kind. The images of horror, presented by a city burnt and sacked in the night, are finely mixed with pathetic and affecting incidents. Nothing, in any poet, is more beautifully described than the death of old Priam; and the family-pieces of iEneas, Anchises, and Creusa, are as tender as can be conceived. In many passages of the iEneid, the same pathetic spirit shines; and they have been always the favourite passages in that work. The fourth book, for instance, relating the unhappy passion and death of Dido, has been always most justly admired, and abounds with beauties of the highest kind. The interview at THE iENEID OF VIRGIL.
iEneas with Andromache and Helenus, in the third book, the episodes of Pallas and Evander, of Nisus and Euryalus, of Lausus and Mezentius,in the Italian wars, are all striking instances of the poet’s power of raising the tender emotions. For we must observe, that though the iEneid be an unequal poem, and, in some places, languid, yet there are beauties scattered through it all; and not a few, even in the last six books. The best and most finished books, upon the whole, are, the first, the second, the fourth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, and the twelfth.
Virgil’s battles are far inferior to Homer’s, in point of fire and sublimity; but there is one important episode, the descent into hell, in which he has outdone Homer in the Odyssey, by many degrees. There is nothing in all antiquity equal, in its kind, to the sixth book of the iEneid. The scenery, and the objects, are great and striking; and fill the mind with that solemn awe, which was to be expected from a view of the invisible world. There runs through the whole description a certain philosophical sublime; which Virgil’s Platonic genius, and the enlarged ideas of the Augustan age, enabled him to support with a degree of majesty, far beyond what the rude ideas of Homer’s age suffered him to attain. With regard to the sweetness and beauty of Virgil’s numbers, throughout his whole works, they are so well known, that it were needless to enlarge in the praise of them.
Upon the whole, as to the comparative merit of these two great princes of epic poetry, Homer and Virgil; the former must, undoubtedly, be admitted to be the greater genius; the latter, to be the more correct writer. Homer was an original in his art, and discovers both the beauties and the defects which are to be expected in an original author, compared with those who succeed him; more boldness, more nature and ease, more sublimity and force; but greater irregularities and negligences in composition. Virgil has, all along, kept his eye upon Homer; in many places, he has not so much imitated, as he has literally translated him. The description of the storm, for instance, in the first iEneid, and iEneas’s speech upon that occasion, are translations from the fifth book of the Odyssey; not to mention almost all the similes of Virgil, which are no other than copies of those of Homer. The pre-eminence in invention, therefore, must, beyond doubt, be ascribed to Homer. As to the preeminence in judgment, though many critics are disposed to give it to Virgil, yet, in my opinion, it hangs doubtful. In Homer, we discern all the Greek vivacity; in Virgil, all the Roman stateliness. Homer’s imagination is by much the most rich and copious; Virgil’s, the most chaste and correct. The strength of the former lies in his power of warming the fancy; that of the latter, in his power of touching the heart. Homer’s style is more simple and animated; Virgil’s more elegant and uniform. The first has, on many occasions, a sub limity to which the latter never attains; but the latter, in return, never sinks below a certain degree of epic dignity, which cannot so clearly be pronounced of the former. Not, however, to detract from the admiration due to both these great poets, most of Homer’s defects may reasonably be imputed, not to his genius, but to the manners of the age in which he lived; and for the feeble passages of the iEneid, this excuse ought to be admitted, that the .ZEneid was left an unfinished work.