OBSERVATIONS On the POEMS OF HOMER AND VIRGIL A discourse representing the Excellencies of those Works; and the perfections in general, of all Heroic Action. Out of the French, By JOHN DAVIES of KIDWELLY  
LONDON Printed by S. G. and B. G. and are to be sold by Dorman Newman at the Kings-Arms in the Poultry, and Jonathan Edwin at the three Roses in Ludgate Street. 1672.   

There is in the press and ready to be published.  
The comparison of Plato with Aristotle, with the opinions of the Fathers on their Doctrine, and some Christian Reflections.  
Judgement upon Alexander and Caesar as also upon Seneca, Plutarch, and Petronius.  
And are to be sold by Jonathan Edwin at the three Roses in Ludgate-Street.   

To the Honourable Sir JOHN BERKENHEAD Master of Requests to his Majesty, Master of the Faculties, and one of the Members of the Honourable House of Commons.  
SIR,  
I Here present you with a Discourse on the Poems of Homer and Virgil, the most accomplished productions of Mans' wit in their kind, their excellency being such, that they have been the delight and admiration of all after-ages, and the Models of all those who have since written upon the subject of Heroic Action.  
As to the former, you know, Sir, what was said of him by Alexander the Great, that Kings gave their votes for him, when Hesiod had only those of the Pesantry: not to urge that Horace's eloge of him, when he said — Nil molitur ineptè, was certainly the greatest could be given an Author.  
And as to Virgil, what can be imagined more remarkable, than that the Romans, a People so intelligent, & such as numbered crowned Heads amongst their Subjects, should render him, one day, in the Theatre, the same honours which they were wont to render Augustus; making thereby a public acknowledgement of such a grandeur of Genius, in that admirable Person, as they thought worthy the respects due to Sceptres and Diadems?  
How intimately Sir, you, are acquainted with these transcendent Poets, all know that know you especially théy who reflect on your recesses during the late unparallelled Usurpations, when the envied ingenious had no other consolations, than those of Poesy and Philosophy. These observations of my Author will haply recall to your mind some yourself had made on this subject, which, had not the distractions of those times smothered them, might have prevented the present Address of these to you, from,  
SIR, Your most humble and much obliged Servant, JO. DAVIES   
OBSERVATIONS UPON HOMER AND VIRGIL.  

OBSERVATION ay: Of the value of their several Works.  
OF all the productions Man's mind is capable of, the Epic Poem is doubtless the most accomplished, in regard it involves all the perfections of the others. This is the general sentiment of all the 
‖ Poet, c. 26.  Learned, though Aristotle attributes the advantage to Tragedy, as to the quantity, in as much as its parts being of less extent, and bearing a more equal and timited proportion, it is more proper to excite a less wearisome & less languishing divertisement. Yet may it be affirmed, that the other advantages, which the Heroic Poem hath over the Dramatic, are so considerable, nay so much acknowledged such, that all allow it to be the most excellent and most transcendent of all humane productions. So that the Poems of Homer and Virgil being, by the consent of all ages, the most perfect models that ever appeared in that kind of writing; to judge which of them ought to be preferred before the other, is, in my opinion, to decide the most important question that can be advanced in matter of literature, and peremptorily to define upon the point of their highest grandeur and perfection. For never any equalled the sublimity and loftiness of Genius of those two great Persons.  
This is the sentiment of 
‖ Duo illi omnis doctrinae apices Homerus & Virgilius. Casaub. Praes. in Pers.  one of the ablest Critics of the later ages, who calls these two Authors the two Chiefs and Sovereigns of all the Sciences: not to insist on the suffrage of two of the most learned and most judicious Princes that ever were. For 
‖ Pretiosissimum opus animi humani. Plin. lib. 7. c. 9  Alexander, having found Homer's Iliads in a Cabinet of Darius, after his defeat, called it the richest and most exquisite work of man's wit: And Augustus made it sufficiently appear that he had not ever esteemed any thing comparable to the Aeneids. by the impatience he was in to see it during Virgil's life, and the care he took of it after his death. But not insisting, I say, on the Authority of these two great and so intelligent Princes, it may be said, that there never was any merit more universally celebrated then that of those great Genii, nor any more unanimously acknowledged: 
* Qui Homerum contemnunt vix illis optari quioquam pejus potest, quam ut fatuitate suâ fruantur. Casaub, Dissert. de Homero.  And there hath not risen up any one during the whole process of time since, that durst dispute it, without dishonouring himself, and, by so irrational a presumption, betraying his insufficiency and the weakness of his endowments.   

OBSERVE. II. How these two Poems are to be considered in order to a Right judgement of them.  
Among the Learned of the latter ages, who have pretended to give their opinions of the Poems of Homer and Virgil, and to make a parallel between them, the most considerable are Macrobius, Julius Scaliger, and Fulvius Vrsinus. But as they have examined those works merely as Grammarians, so have they not judged rightly of them, having only applied their reflections to the external and superficial part thereof, and sparing themselves the trouble of penetrating to the bottom. This defect hath hindered in a manner all the Learned from judging rightly of them; and the prepossession they had for Homer hath dazzled all those who pretended to the glory of being thought learned. For it is known, that they who affect the repute of being thought learned men imagine themselves the more considerable, I account it an honour to declare their judgement in favour of Homer, and to give him the advantage over Virgil. And they are of opinion, that it argues a certain discovery of greater sufficiency, to declare in favour of merit, which requires more capacity and attentive application to be known. And indeed as there is a greater depth of Learning requisite to judge of Homer then of Virgil; so men think themselves much distinguished from the common sort, in preferring the former before the latter, and, by that means, that they acquire a reputation of superiority in point of abilities, which highly satisfies the slight vanity of those who make ostentation of Science.  
This is a prejudgment, which a man would do well to rid himself of, how great soever his ability may be. For one is many times more capable of judging when he thinks himself not to be so; nay sometimes it is a certain assumption of authority for a man not to take it upon him, in as much as presumption ordinarily deprives the mind of the liberty of judging with absolute indifference, which is requisite for the well doing of it. This is the party it is my design to take, that so I may not expose myself to prepossession, if while I am desirous to examine things, I took the liberty to judge of them: but I declare that I only intent to propose my Observations and Scruples, upon the works of these two Authors, yet so as to leave it to those who are more excellently qualified than I am, to make what decision they please upon my Remarks.  
But to enter upon the discussion of the question, I shall not stick to make a previous acknowledgement, that Homer has a much larger Groundwork to build upon, than Virgil; that he hath a greater extent of characters, that he deciphers things much better; that his representations are more accurate; that his reflections are more moral and sententious; that his imagination is more pregnant; that he hath a more universal fancy; that he is of all professions, Poet, Orator, Mathematician, Philosopher, Astronomer, Artisan, when he pleases; that he has more variety in the disposition of his Fable; that he discovers more of that impetuosity, which makes the elevation of the Genius; that his expression is more pathetical; that he is more fortunate as to his natural inclination; that he is a Poet upon the account of his temperament; that his Verses are fuller of pomp and magnificence; that they more delightfully fill the ear by their number and cadence, to such as know the beauty of versifying. But after all this considered, it were only to judge of Homer and Virgil, only by what is most superficial in them, as the Grammarians do, if one should frame his judgement on those considerations, since there are other more essential things in their works to be examined.  
To come then to a regular judgement of them, we must begin with an enquiry, what an Epic Poem is, what is its matter, its form, its end, and its other parts.  
The Epopoea, saith 
‖ 〈◊〉. Poet. c. 5.  Aristotle, is an imitation, or a draught or portraiture of an illustrious action. It has that common with Tragedy; yet with this difference, that the latter imitates by representation, and the former by narration. So that its matter is Heroic action; its form, Fable; its end, the instruction of Princes and Grandees.  
Let us now examine the Poems of Homer and Virgil, according to these rules and principles; and that we may not be mistaken, let us not look on those great works by fragments; Let us not examine those two Authors, by their Descriptions, Similitudes and Epithets: That is only the superficial part of them; let us search into what is essential therein, as to the design and execution. To do it methodically, let us reflect on the order of the parts of the Epic Poem, which 
‖ Poet. cap. 5.  Aristotle gives us some account of, to wit, Fable, Manners, Sentiments, and Words, Let us compare Homer and Virgil by those Rules, and according to that order.   

OBSERVE. III. The Fables of the Iliad and the Aeneid compared.  
LEt us begin with Fable, which is the first of the parts of the Epic Poem, and consider that of the Iliad, and that of the Aeneid, as they both lie naked without the Episodes or Digressions thereof.  
The Fable of the Iliad is, that one of the Chieftains of the Grecian Army being malcontent and disgusted by the General, retires from the Camp, without harkening to his Duty, Reason, or Friends; deserts the public interest and that of the State, to comply with the impetuosity of his resentment; he abandons himself to grief in a solitary retirement. His Enemies make their advantage of his absence, and grow too powerful for his Party; they kill his best Friend; he takes up Arms again to revenge his Death; and Passion makes him do what Reason had not been able to get from him; and in fine, he kills the Head of the adverse party. This is the Fable of the Iliad, abstracting the Episodes, and despoiled of all its Ornaments.  
That of the Aeneid is this. A Prince forced to fly by reason of the Ruin of his Country, comes to seek up and down the World for another establishment; He makes his Gods and his Father the Companions of his flight. The Gods, moved with that Piety of his, concern themselves to establish him in the noblest Country in the world; and he becomes the Founder of the most flourishing Empire that ever was.  
Let us make a comparison between these two Fables, and compute the Grandeur of the two Heroes by that of their actions. The action of Achilles is 
‖ 〈◊〉 Iliad. 1.  pernicious to his Country, and his own Party, as Homer himself acknowledges: that of Aeneas is advantageous and glorious: the motive of the former is a Passion, that of the latter, a virtue: The action of Achilles is the occasion of the death of Patroclus, his best Friend; the action of Aeneas is the occasion of the liberty of his Gods, and that of his Father, and of the safety of those who were with him: The one is Heroic, that is, above the ordinary virtue of Man (so 
‖ 〈◊〉.  Aristotle defines Heroic Virtue, in his Ethics): The other is not so much as rational, and implies in it self a character of ferocity, which, according to the same Aristotle, is the vice opposite to Heroisme, if we may use that term. For as Heroisme is above Man, so its contrary is below him.  
The action of Aeneas has a more perfect end than that of Achilles; it puts a period to affairs by the death of Turnus; that of Achilles puts no period to them. The Siege of Troy lasts a whole year after Hector's death; which occasioned Quintus Calaber, and an Egyptian named Tryphiodorus, Authors of no mean note, to observe, that the Iliad is imperfect, because they are not terminated by Hector's death, but his death made an obstacle to that termination; and consequently, which way soever we look on the Aeneid, we find, that its end is much more fortunate and fully complete than that of the Iliad.  
But if we be at the trouble to consider how much Conduct, Invention, Perspicacity, and Wit, must club together, in the choice of a subject that derives the Romans from the blood of the Gods, particularly Augustus, who reigned during the Poet's Life, and whom he so delightfully flatters with the promise of an Empire that was to be eternal; what beauty, what grandeur, what an insinuation of divertisement, what excellency do we not find in the admirable choice with Virgil has made? And what is there to be found comparable thereto in that of Homer? For as never any Author more honoured his Country by his works than Virgil has done his, by attributing to the Romans a divine extraction, and an eternal posterity according to the decrees of the destinies; so it may be said of Homer, that he has disgraced his Country, in taking for his Hero, a person who occasioned the 
‖ 〈◊〉.  destruction of so many Heroes, whom he sacrificed to his grief and discontent. Which gave Plato occasion so much to blame hat Anger of Achilles, the consequences whereof were so prejudicial to the Greeks: L' ira di Achille, fù con amaritudine ripresa da Platone: The anger of Achilles was sharply reproved by Plato, as Tasso hath observed after him in his Opuscula.  
Yet to excuse Homer, for his having made that Passion the subject of his Poem, it may be urged, that the animosities of the ancient Heroes, before the affability and meekness of Christianity had been preached, was not either a weakness or defect, as Tasso seems to insinuate, in his Dialogue of virtue; Il souverchio dell' ira fù attribuito a Hercole, Achille, Aiace, & altri Heroi. Et Alessandro per ammaestramento filosofico, non pote tener laa freno, quantunche alcuna volta vincesse il piacere come dimostro doppo la morte di Dario, nel respetto portato a la moglie, e a la madre: A certain transcendency of Anger was attributed to Hercules, Achilles, Ajax, and other Heroes. And Alexander himself, notwithstanding all his documents of Philosophy, could not bridle that passion, though sometimes he mastered his concupiscence, as he showed upon the death of Darius, in the respect he bore to his Wife and Mother. But as the same Plato tells us, that Anger is not virtuous, but when it takes up Arms for the defence of Reason, so is it to be inferred, that that of Achilles was not upon any account a virtue, since it was far from being rational, as Tasso says in the second Book of his Opuscula: Pair i Homero con la persona di Agamemnone ci metta inanzi a li occhi una figura della ragione depravata: e con quella d' Achille l' imagine dell' ira smoderata, & trapassante determini presscritti della ragione: It appears, that Homer, in the Person of Agamemnon sets before our eyes an image of depraved reason; and in that of Achilles that of an excessive Anger, and such as transcends the prescribed bounds of reason.  
Thus is the Matter or Subject of Virgil's Poem more happy, nay, and more advantageous, both to himself and his Country, and consequently his choice more prudent and judicious than that of Homer.   

OBSERVE. IV. A comparison made between the two Heroes: Achilles and Aeneas.  
THe action of Achilles importing somewhat more of marvellous, than that of Aeneas, in regard it is managed by him himself, without any assistance or company, and that his presence in, or absence from the army occasions all the advantages and disadvantages of his party, every one will be apt at the first sight to give it the preference. But it will not be so when a man takes the leisure to look into things more narrowly, and more strictly examines these two great Heroes. The first observation to be made in order to the clearing of the point, is that it is likely it was not Homer intention to give us, in his Hero, the idea of a great Captain, or an accomplished Prince; but to show how prejudicial discord is in any party, and so to make a draught of an action at the same time, both dreadful and miraculous. This is the opinion of Tasso in his Opuscula: Per ció fare l'idea di una terribile et maravigliosa attione.  
Wherein he did not as Xenophon did, who, describing his Prince, the Grand Cyrus, to make an absolutely accomplished person, confined himself not to the truth of things, but to the idea in general, of a complete Prince, according to 
‖ Poetis  Aristotle's precept, who would have the Poet, in the representation and descriptions he makes, imitate, not such as are like, nor yet such as have any imperfections, but the most perfect in their kinds. And 
* Leg. l. 5.  Plato teaches that imitation is not to be made, but from the things that are most accomplished. Besides as the image, in a just and regular imitation, aught to be like the original; so ought not this original to be any one man or Prince in particular, but the idea of a Prince or accomplished Person in general. According to this model hath Plato described the perfect idea of a just man; Xenophon, that of a Prince; and Cicero, that of an Orator; by attributing to each what was most transcendent and accomplished in the idea which he framed to himself thereof.  
And hence it is apparent, not only that Homer followed not that maxim in framing his Hero, since he has made him subject to great weaknesses and notorious imperfections, instead of inserting into the idea, which he pretends to give of him, the consummation of all the Virtues, according to the advertisement of Paul Beni in his Academical Discourses: Nell poema Heroico conviene esprimer l'idea di perfettissimo Capitano: ò vero former Hero in cui sia il colmo di tutte le vertù militari e civili. In an Heroic Poem, 'tis requisite to express the idea of a most perfect Captain, or to form such an Hero in whom should be the height of all virtues military & civil.  
And this is a very considerable advantage that Virgil had over Homer. For whereas the latter had not, for the making up of his Hero, any other idea then that of the Virtue of Hercules, Theseus, or some other person of the primitive times, who were celebrated only for their strength and vigour, it is no wonder if there be such a defect of Morality in the Hero he hath given us, considering the time wherein he framed him: there being not then either in History or Books any idea of moral Virtue. And whereas men knew not of any greater enemies to oppose, than Monsters and Wild-Beasts, there needed only bodies and arms to pretend to the title of Hero. They knew not then that there were some dangerous and terrible enemies, to wit, their passions and their own desires, and moderation and justice were not as yet virtues much known in the world.  
Thus Virgil, besides the advantage he had of framing his Heros out of the two Heroes of Homer, that is, the valour of Achilles, and the prudence of Ulysses, had also the opportunity to add thereto the Gallantry of Ajax, the wisdom of Nestor, the indefatigable patience of Diomedes, and the other virtues, whereof Homer sets down the characters in his two Poems: to all which reuniting yet further the other virtues which he had observed in all other illustrious men, as Themistocles, Epaminondas, Alexander, Hannibal, Ingurth, and a thousand other foreigners, as also in Horatius Camillus, Scipio, Sertorius, Pompey, Caesar, and a great number of others of his own Country. Had he not a groundwork infinitely greater to fancy to himself an accomplished Hero than Homer had? Thus did the Painter Zeuxis finish that famous Picture of Helena, which he had undertaken, and was the admiration of his age, much more happily, and after a more complete manner, than Apelles did that of Venus; inasmuch as Zeuxis framed his idea from all the perfections he had found in the rarest Beauties of his time, whereas Apelles would frame his only from his own pure imagination, which he found to fall short in the execution; so that he was forced to leave his piece imperfect, as being of opinion, that he was not able to finish it as he had begun it.  
This inequality in the subject whereof I treat will appear yet much more evident, if we but take the pains to compare the pourtraicture which Horace hath left us of Achilles, with that which Virgil makes of Aeneas. Achilles is a Bravo, but withal a hasty, impetuous, furious, passionate, violent, unjust, inexorable one, a contemner of Laws, and one that places all his reason in the sword he wears by his side;  
‖ De Art Poetic.  Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer, Jura negat sibi nata, nihil non arrogat armis. 
Besides those excellent qualities, which certainly are not very Heroic, he is cruel towards the body of Hector, so far as to take a pleasure in exercising his vengeance upon it, and out of an unexampled avarice he sells to the afflicted Father, the body of his son. I shall not say any thing of his quitting (with a lightness not to be pardoned) that great and generous enterprise made by a general combination of all Greece, upon the occasion of a she slave, for whom he abandons himself to tears and complaints, with so many discoveries of weakness. In fine, this Hero of Homer, whose repute is so great, and so highly celebrated through all ages, is but an epitome of imperfections and vices.  
But on the contrary, Virgil makes a conjunction, of all the virtues to frame his: he gives him Religion towards the Gods; piety, towards his Country; tenderness and friendship for his Relations and equity and justice, towards all. He is undaunted in danger, patient in labours, courageous when occasion requires, prudent in the management of assaires. In sine he is a good peaceful, liberal, eloquent, gentile, civil person; his very air makes a certain discovery of grandeur and and majesty; and that he may not be destitute of any one of those qualifications which might contribute to the accomplishment of a great Person, he is fortunate. Ilioneus gives Dido a character of him in these two Verses, which may be confronted to those two of Horace, wherein Achilles is described; 
Rex erat Aeneas nobis, quo justior alter  
Nec pieiate fuit, nec bello major & armis.  These are the three sovereign qualities which make up his essential character, Religion, justice, and Valour, and which were those of Augustus, whose pourtraicture, Virgil drew in the Heroes he dedicated to him, as Monsieur de Segrais hath well observed in the learned Preface to his Traduction of the Aeneid: which is one of the most subtle and ingenious flatteries that ever were: wherein happened to him, what 
‖ Fingenti formantique Principem voto concipere succurrit similem huic quem videmus.  Pliny said sometime after with so much smartness in his Panegyric to the Emperor Trajan: For Ovid tells us that Piety was one of the eminent qualities of Augustus, who made it so much his care to re-establish the Temples at Rome: 

† Fast. l 2.  Sub quo delubris sentitur nulla senectus,  
Nec satis est homines, obligat ille Deos.  So that out of the virtues of Augustus, and an infinite number of perfections distributed and scattered among divers other Heroes, Virgil framed his; in as much as the true Heroic virtue is a combination of all the virtues, as Aristotle affirms in his Ethics. And indeed, if the Pythagoreans would have a Sovereign, that he might deserve the pre-eminence over others, not only to be without any defect, but also absolutely accomplished in and possessed of all the Virtues; with much more reason should a Hero, who is the model according to which Kings ought to regulate themselves, be a person of transcendent and consummate virtue.   

OBSERVE. V. Which of the two Heroes was most eminent, as to Gallantry and Valour.  
Yet may we allow all these Observations, without giving the pre-eminence to Aeneas For the character of Valiant, which Homer gives Achilles, which of all the characters implies most of the Heroic humour, makes a great show, and is infinitely more accomplished than that which Virgil gives Aeneas, and denotes and distinguishes him much better from all those of his party, though all valiant. For there is nothing done without him, and he alone occasions the good and bad fortunes of his Army.  
I must confess the valour of Achilles makes a greater noise and show then that of Aeneas, in regard it is the only Heroic quality Homer gives him, and by which he distinguishes him; and so itis the more remarkable, being alone: and in Aeneas, being attended by many others, it is so much the less observable, inasmuch as the lustre of it is confounded with that of all his other qualities. We find in Achilles only the Hero of Homer, but in that of Virgil, we have Menelaus, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Ajax Nestor, Diomedes, and Achilles himself, if we follow Virgil but any thing closely through all the transactions he makes him go through in the second book of Aeneids  
Nay it may be affirmed, that if we can exactly distinguish between true Valour and Temerity, and shall have well observed the circumference which Aristotle, in the Ethics attributes to the magnanimous person, we shall find that Virgil exalts the Valour he attributes to Aeneas as far as it ought to go; but we must take the leisure to make an attentive reflection thereon, to find that character in him, and ought not to suffer any of all the circumstances, wherewith he endeavours to prepossess our minds, to escape our observance.  
In the first place he brings in Aeneas advertised by Hector, who appears to him after his death, that the Greeks have suprized Troy, that they are Masters of it, and that its destiny is to be destroyed. This advertisement coming from a deceased person, Religion renders his testimony sacred; and to take him off from all endeavours to defend it, he assures him, that he had done the utmost he could by his courage; Sat patriae Priamoque datum est— He might have contented himself with that, being informed by so sacred a testimony of the will of the Gods; but awakened by the noise of the sacking of the City, and the conflagration of the neighbouring houses; he goes up himself to the top of his house to discover the cause of that noise and disorder; and his apprehensions prompt him to take arms, and die for his Country; — Pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis. The danger startles him not, though he were alone at his going forth armed out of his house. Without consulting his own people he runs to the place where the tumult was, the confusion of a surprised City, and the most pressing exigency, that could be, call him away; In flammas & in arma feror— Having in his way met with Choroebus, Dymas, and Hypanis, with some others whom he knew, he leads them on, and animates them by his example; Moriamur & in media arma ruamus— He with his own hands kills Androgeos, one of the most forward of the enemy's Commanders; he makes a great slaughter of the Greeks, with a handful of his own people; he and they take up the arms of the slain to disguise themselves; which proved so successful, that he forced some out of the City, and pursues them flying, quite to their ships; 
Diffugiunt alii ad naves, & littora cursu  
Fida petunt—  But orepressed by number, Dymas, Hypanis, and his other friends, being killed by his sides, he runs to the Palace, where the danger was greatest, and attaques it with all his might, in hopes to rescue the King and all of the Royal Family; Instaurati animi Regis succurere tectis. He comes thither too late, the Greeks had put all within it to the sword, and, being the only person left of his party Jamque adeo super unus erami— and finding himself deserted by all, there being not any thing left in the Palace, that might occasion his stay, after he had seen the King, the Queen, and her Daughters slaughtered, he runs to his own house, to spend his own life, in defending that of his Father. But his mother Venus stops him in his way, and opens his eyes to let him see, that it is against the Gods he thinks to fight, and that they are the destroyers of Troy, and not only the Greeks;  
— Mixtoque undantem pulvere fumum  
Neptunus muros, magnoque emota tridenti  
Fundamenta quatit; totamque a sedibus urben  
Eruit. Hic Juno Scaeas saevissima portas  
Prima tenet, sociumque vocans a navibus agmen.  
Ferro accincta vocat— etc.  
Jupiter and Pallas are also against him. So that Aeneas, who saw them, might have contented himself, without pursuing things any further; it had been an impiety, and not a mark of valour to stand out longer against so many Gods combined together. Yet being come to his house, which he did only in order to the defence of his Father's life, though with the loss of his own, and perceiving he would not survive the destruction of his Country, he arms once more at least, to go and court a glorious death; Hic ferro accingor rursus—  
And there must be Prodigies from Heaven, and advertisements from the Gods themselves, ere he will be diverted; 
— Subitoque fragore  
Intonuit laevum, etc.—  Anchises himself is the interpreter of them, and Aeneas could not submit to any thing but that; Cessi, & sublato montem genitore petivi, 'tis not to Men, but to the Gods only that he yields; I am in doubt, whether Gallantry can be advanced any higher; and yet this is but the beginning, and the first essay of that of Aeneas: all the courageous actions he performs in the sequel of the Aeneid bear the character of his valour: which will appear miraculous even in these times, wherein that excellent name is without any distinction bestowed on the most temerarious sallies and eruptions of fury and brutality.  
From these observations it will be no hard matter to judge, which of the two Heroes, Achilles and Aeneas is the most complete and accomplished; which is one of the most essential parts of the Poem. I come to the second, which is the disposition of the Fable.   

OBSERVATION VI Of the disposition of the fabulous part of the two Poems.  
THe disposition or distribution of the Fable consists in three things, to wit, the natural deduction or consequence of the principal action, and all the matters which compose it; an exact intermixture of what is probable and what miraculous; and the marshalling and correspondence of the Episodes or Digressions, with the principal action. These three qualities, which comprehend the distribution of the Fable, by Aristotle, called the 
‖ 〈◊〉.  Constitution of the things are so essential to the Poem, that it cannot be absolutely complete without them.  
The first is the Action, which ought to be entire, and perfect, according to the advice of Aristotle: that is to say, as he explains it, such as hath a beginning, a middle, and an end. Horace would have these parts to have a certain proportion and connexion among themselves; Primo nè nedium, medio ne discrepet imum And these are the observations which may be made upon our Poems as to this point. If the action and principal subject of the Iliad be the war of Troy, according to the sentiment of 
‖ Ad Loll. l. I. Ep. II.  Horace, a great Master in that Art, who calls Homer Trojani belli Scriptorem, and that of many others; that action is defective and imperfect, for that war has not, in the Iliad, either beginning or end; and it would be as it were a Statue which should have neither head nor foot. So that we might apply to that work this verse of Horace; 

† Ad Pison.  Infelix operis summâ, qui ponere totum  
Nesciat—  But if it be the anger of Achilles, as it is more likely, and as Homer himself acknowledges by his proposition; that anger has indeed a beginning; but it has neither end, nor middle: for it is thrust out of doors by another animosity of the same person against Hector for the death of Patroclus. So that there are two angers, one upon the loss of his Friend, the other upon their taking away of his Mistress. But the greatest defect is, that the rest of the Poem has no connection with that anger; and Homer, during the space of eighteen books, thinks no more of it, as if he had clearly forgot his proposition and design, which like a star should regulate the course of it, or be as it were a Compass which a man cannot have out of his sight but he must deviate. During that long interval he speaks only of sieges, battles, surprises, consultations of the Gods, and all relates to the siege of Troy. Which occasioned Horace's being of opinion, that the subject of the Iliad is the war of Troy, according to the very name it goes under. And so which way soever we look on that Poem, it will appear defective in that part  
Nor is the Odyssey an action, any way more perfect than that of the Iliad. It begins with the voyages of Telemachus and ends with those of Ulysses. All is made for Telemachus in the four first books; Menelaus', Nestor and the other Grecian Princes relate to him the adventures of Troy; all relate to that, there's no thought at all of Ulysses; which made Paul Beni affirm in his Academical Discourses upon Homer and Virgil, that the Fable of the Odysseys is clearly double; E chiarament provato che l'Odisse a contenga due peregrinationi, e in somma sia di doppia favola. Not that I absolutely allow it to be so; yet I stick not to pretend, that it is hard to find therein the principal action very regularly carried on, and according to the proportions required by Horace, in the forementioned precept for the natural connection of the parts. Nay this very voyage of Telemachus bears not any proportion to that of Ulysses, which is the principal action. It contributes nothing at all, nay not so much as to minister any occasion for his return, which is brought about by the disposition of jupiter and the assistance of the Phoenicians. Which made Beni say, that the four first books of the Odyssey are neither Episode nor part of action, nor have any connection with the rest of the work. Take them as they are, one knows not what to make of them.  
The Aeneid, methinks, is not chargeable with that defect. Aeneas leaves Phrygia, makes his voyages, and settles himself in Italy; all is consequent in that design, and all relates to the establishment of a new Empire, which is the true subject of the Poem. And Virgil prosecutes it to the designed mark without digressing to what hath no relation thereto.  
Semper ad eventum festinat, & in me diasres  
Non secus ac notas auditorem rapit— Hor.  
He is also more happy than Homer in the distribution of the particular matters and occurrences which relate to the general Disposition of his Poem.  
And it is this distribution and this disposition of things which makes that admirable regularity, and that proportion; wherein alone consists the perfection of a great work, which is neither beautiful nor complete any further than there is that correspondence between its parts. Which occasioned Beni's observation in his Academical discourses, That the perfection of a Poem ought not to be computed by the beauty of one, or several parts, but by all together: Non dee stimarsi l' excellenza del Poema da una sola circostanza o parle, ma da tutte insieme.  
This regular proportion of the parts, and the exact rapport there ought to be between them, seems to be incomparably better observed in the Aeneid, than the Iliad; for there, every thing is introduced in its order and place, and no man ever better followed that distribution of matters, and that series of events than Virgil has done. Thence Horace recommends it above all things to the poet, 
‖ Ad Pison.  Vt jam nunc dicat, jam nunc debentia dici. insinuating that all the excellency and perfection of a work consists in that order; adding 
* Ibid.  Ordinis haec virtus erit, & venus— in regard the grace and divertive satisfaction in a work cannot proceed from any thing but that distribution.  
And not to dilate here, upon what may be particularly and minutely observed therein, I shall only make a transient comparison between the games or divertisements, which Achilles makes in the 23. book of the Iliads upon the death of Patroclus, and those which Aeneas makes for the Apotheosis of Anchises in the 5. of the Aeneids.  
Games may be numbered among those actions which may occur in the lives of Heroes, and be so introduced into the matters of the Heroic Poem, in regard they are occasions of magnificence, which is one of the qualities that make up the Hero. Virgil makes his in the V. of his Aeneids, first to divert the imagination of his Reader from the mournful object of Dido's death, which he had represented in the fourth book, and which had something of savageness in it; secondly to divert himself by the diverting of his Hero; and these are of those sorts of pleasures, which, to be received well ought to come in, in their place.  

‖ Horat. ad Pison.  Ne spissae risum tollant impunè coronae. If Virgil had not placed his Games well in the second or third book; it had been to take breath too soon, as Homer does it too late in the 23. of the Iliad. The time is elapsed; 'tis unseasonable; people are quite tired out; he should not have amused himself being so near the close of it. 'Twere much at one, as if a Traveller earnestly desirous to return from the Indies to Paris, after he had spent two years in his voyage, should trifle away a whole month at Dieppe, in playing at tick-tack, or seeing plays. This would argue a strange want of judgement. And this we must seriously say of Homer, that he might have been more serious towards the end of his work, and in all likelihood he ought to have been a little weary, and not have diverted from making up to his final stage, being got so near it. There are abundance of things utterly incredible in the representation of those Games. The Surveyors or Judges make discourses in them, which tyre out and exhaust the patience of the Readers.  
The second part of the Disposition which is the just intermixture and attemperation of what is miraculous with what is probable, is also essential to the Epic Poem, which ought to have somewhat admirable in it, to move the hearts of Grandees for whom it is writ, that they may be animated to great things: but with this caution, that it ought also to be probable, so to avoid giving an absolute check to their emulation, and in fine running them into despair. Truth itself which the Historian ought strictly to inquire into, being sometimes too strong to be imitated, is not always so convenient to be the matter of the Epic Poem, as Probability, which has a greater proportion to things than men are wont to make. For example the action of Samson, who defeated the Philistines with the jaw bone of an ass, is an Heroic action; yet can it not be the subject of an Epic Poem. For though it be true, yet is it not likely to be so; and consequently it is too miraculous to be proposed for imitation; we are therefore to avoid that excess by a just attemperation of probability, without which all becomes fabulous and incredible, and makes no impression on men's hearts, which cannot endure to be moved at any thing but what seems possible to them.  
Let us see whether Homer hath been more fortunate in the observance of this Rule, than of that I spoke of last. He insists so little on the probable part, and so far expatiates in the miraculous, out of an excessive earnestness to be always thought admirable and to hurry men's minds along with him, that he does not leave any thing to be done by reason, or passion, nor indeed by nature; all is done by machine's and engines. If Priamus hath lost Hector, there is a necessity of Jupiter's sending the Goddess Iris, his Messenger, to give him an advertisement that he should take a care of his Son's body, and redeem it from Achilles. Could not his Father, who had so great a tenderness for his Son, and was so superstitious to observe the ceremonies performed at funerals, and was so loath that precious depositum should be left to the mercy of the birds, think of it himself? There must be a machine to put him in mind that he is a Father.  
If Telemachus in the Odyssey go to find out Ulysses in the Courts of Greece he cannot stir a foot forwards without the assistance of Minerva, she is his guide wherever he goes, his remembrancer of all things; he does not do or think of any thing himself, he is a great child, whom a Governess leads up and down, by the sleeves. Should not honour, duty, nature have moved his heart, and have raised a little disquiet in him for an absent Father, and that near the space of eighteen years, but there must be a necessity of another's help and a recourse to the machine? Nay this very machine hath not any appearance of probability, in as much as Minerva conducts Telemachus to seek for Ulysses all over Greece, save only to the place where he is, which she ought not to have been ignorant of, upon the score of her Divinity, from which nothing should be concealed.  
And yet this is Homer's method, who to be always vaulting and jumping, that he might be every where the more wondered at, would do all things by extraordinary ways. It may be said, that he makes his Gods such as are to be daily Employed, and orders them, as those among the Comedians who are to act any part. Mercury becomes Coachman to Priamus, to carry him to Achilles, to demand the body of his Son; and lest he should be exposed to the Scouts in his way to the Grecian camp, jupiter makes use of the same Mercury, and his Ministry, to set them asleep: and to prepare Achilles' heart by some sentiment of compassion, Thetis, his mother, must go and prevent him, and dispose him thereto by Jupiter's order. In fine the 
‖ Per ambages Deorumque ministeria.  Gods are employed to do all things; there's no regard had of their rank, nor the peace and tranquillity of heir condition. They are so many Galley-slaves to be put upon any work.  
This is not the air of Virgil, who so religiously observes what Horace hath since advised, that the Gods be not brought into the action, if the thing do not deserve it.  
Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus  
Inciderit—  
And thus does that judicious Poet introduce Mercury in the fourth of the Aeneids, to satisfy Aeneas, who was in a terrible perplexity. The promise he had made to Dido detains him at Carthage; the destiny of his Son, and that Empire of the whole world promised by the Gods, press his departure thence. He is troubled on the one side to be chargeable with a defect of fidelity towards Dido, and on the other, of submission to the Gods. There must come another from above and it must 
‖ Art. Poet.  be some superior power to deliver him out of so strange a trouble. There is a necessity that a God should speak to surmount his difficulty and break that engagement. Mercury does it  
The same may be said of the adventure of Aeneas in the first of the Aeneids. 'Tis not a shepherd or a huntsman that serves him for a guide, in the wand'ring condition he was in, which was natural enough; but Venus appears to him, acquaints him what Country he is in, and with the adventure of his companions, whom he thought lost, and shows him the ways. For such was the conjuncture of things then, that it was necessary it should be a Divinity to raise up Aeneas' courage who had suffered extremely in a dreadful tempest, who had seen some ships of his Fleet cast away, and had been forced by the storm upon a desert shore, destitute of all humane relief and reduced almost to despair. It was fit the Poet should not leave him in that extremity: nay it was likely the Gods ought in some measure to concern themselves for him, since his piety made him so careful of their interest, and since they were the companions of his exile and flight; and decorum required that it should be his Mother who appeared in it, and should make it her business to encourage him, especially after she had been informed by jupiter of his destiny.  
Moreover, besides that all these machine's and contrivances of Virgil are more grounded in reason and likelihood than those of Homer; you will find them less frequent, and less forced, if you take the leisure to examine them one after another. Nay the very management of the Ministry of the Gods is much more suitable to their rank and condition, and incomparably more judicious in Virgil then in Homer, whom for that reason, Dion chrysostom calls the 
‖ 〈◊〉.  greatest impostor in the world, and that in the things most hard to believe.  
We may add further, according to Tasso's remark in his Opuscula, that Virgil had the happiness to embellish his Poem with a kind of the miraculous part, which Homer notwithstanding all his affectation to find out such matter, never thought of: which is to bestow valour on Women, and to make them fight, as Camilla does in the eleaventh book, and that so effectually, which is a very great ornament of the Aeneid. Thus speaks Tasso of it: Niuna cosapar pui maravigliosa della fortezza feminile: Virgilio occupo questa parte, della quale Homero. s'era dimenticato. Nothing seems more admirable than feminine fortitude; Virgil was master of this part, wherein Homer was wanting: after the observation of Dion chrysostom, who had observed it in his Discourse of the affairs of Troy.  
The third part of of the 
〈◊〉, Pollux.  Disposition is the intermixture of the Episodes with the principal Action. The Episode is a kind of Digression from the Subject; and consequently it ought 
‖ 〈◊〉. Suidas.  not to be long, if there be a right observance of the proportions. It ought not to be forced, violently brought in, nor drawn from far, and so betray its disaffinity to the subject; in fine it ought not to be too frequent, that it may not occasion a confusion of matters. Homer begins his Odyssey, which is his more perfect Poem, by an Episode of four Books; he recedes from his subject ere he was well gotten into it, and to make a regular structure he begins with a piece not suitable to the works, according to the observation I have already made of it.  
Has Virgil any such thing in his Episodes, which are so admirably proportionable to the subject, as is that of Pallas and Evander, that of Nisus and Euryalus, that of Camilla and others? Nay that of Dido which is the greatest and largest of them all, never excludes the person of the Hero but it is he that spakes, and relates his own adventures: if he recedes aught from his subject, he still makes frequent returns upon himself; a thing not to be found in the Illiad or Odyssey. Achilles and Ulysses, who are the Heroes celebrated in them, are quite out of sight for the space of several books, and a man may travel a great way ere he can meet with them.  
I leave it to those who can better spare leisure, to examine, whether the Episodes of Homer are not more forced and less natural than those of Virgil. What reference has the wound which Mars received from Diomedes to the anger of Achilles? Homer expatiates upon that adventure in the fifth of the IliMars crying like a child and makes his complaint to Jupiter, who unkindly entertains him with bitter railleries. However, to try all ways, they think fit to send for Paeon, the Physician of the Gods to cure him: The God, dess Hebe concerns herself for him. The poet, who thinks the passage Pleasant, prosecutes it with might and main. He descends to obscenity, and would be pitied, were it not for the respect wherewith men are possessed for the grandeur of his Genius.  
But to forbear being too particular, which would be an endlessework we may say Virgil never recedes from his subject, Homer is for the most part at a distance from his; and by the multiplicity and great train of his Episodes, he is continually hurried away with the impetuosity and intemperance of his imaginations, which he follows without any discretion or choice. He may be compared to those Travelers, who have a great journey to go, yet every thing stops and amuses them. There is not a good blow given with a sword in the heat of an engagement., but he must take occasion thence to tell stories and derive genealogies.   

OBSERVE. VII. Of Manner's  
MOrality, or Manners, aught to follow the Disposition of the Fable, according to Aristotle's design. It is the third quality of the Poem, and it is not so much the morality of the Poet himself that is to be understood by these Manners, as that of the Actors and Persons who are to enter into the action. What a vast difference shall we find, as to this point' between our two admirable Poets? In Homer, Kings and Princes speak as scurrilously one of another as Porters would do. Agamemnon, in the Iliad, treats Chryses the high Priest, as an extravagant and impious person, when he only demands, with much respect, nay with presents, his own Daughter, which he had taken away from him. He told him, that he had no regard at all to the external marks of his Priesthood, whereby he ought to have gained his respect. Nor does that priest speak afterwards like a good and virtuous man in the prayer he makes to Apollo, wherein he desires him to destroy the Greeks, that his resentment might be revenged. That is somewhat uncharitable, little beseeming him, whose office it was to pray for the people, and the preservation of the state, according to his function of high-Priest.  
Achilles, in the nineteenth of the Iliads goes to his Mother Thetis, to make her sensible of the fear he was in, that the flies might injure the body of his friend Patroclus, then newly killed, and enter into his wounds, which might breed corruption, such as might render the body most deformed. Is the same zeal against the flies a thing beseeming a Hero? And is he not an excellent Poet who employs a Divinity to drive them away?  
Ulysses, whom Homer proposes as an exemplar of wisdom, suffers himself to be made drunk by the Pheacians, for which Aristotle and Philostratus blame that Poet. But what extravagance was it in that accomplished Sage, so soon to forget his wife, a women so virtuous as she was, and his Son who was so dear to him, to squander away so long a time in the dalliances of his Prostitute Calypso, and to run after the famous Sorceress Circe, and being a King, as he was, to abase himself so far as to go to fisticuffs with a pitiful rascally beggar named Irus? Priamus, in the 24 of the Iliad, does not speak like a Father at all; he cruelly all treats his other children, to express his grief for the death of Hector. He wishes them all dead, so Hector were but alive again. His affliction might have been expressed some other way.  
I say nothing of the inhumanity of Achilles upon the body Hector, after his death, but only cite what Cicero says of it Trahit Hectorem ad currum religatum Achilles lacerari eum et sentire, credo, putat, et ulciscitur, 
‖ Tusc. Quest. l. 1.  ut sibi videtur. Achilles, saith he, drags Hector being fastened to a chariot, I suppose he conceives that he was torn and sensible of that treatment, and thinks that he is thereby revenged. This pleasure is not very Heroic. The accidental interview between Ulysses and the daughter of Alcinous in the 6. of Odysseys is clearly against the rules of deceny; and that Princess forgets her own modesty to give too long an audience to his compassion or curiosity.  
In fine there is but little observance of Decorum in Homer's poems: Fathers are therein harsh and cruel, the Heroes weak and passionate, the God's subject to miseries, unquiet, quarrellsome, and not enduring one another; there being not yet any thing of that Stoic Philosophy, which Zeno and his followers taught men since, to make them more rational and perfect than the Gods of the Iliads and Odysseys: whereas in Virgil, every thing observes its proper character. Drances and Turnus' quarrel there, but as persons of quality. The passion between Aeneas and Dido is indeed pursued to the greatest extremity; yet is there not any violation of modesty, or of the rules of external decorum: nay the Gods themselves are people of quality and good repute; and whatever is essential as to devoir or decency is therein most religiously observed. For Virgil had followed that admirable model which he had found in Terence, of whom 
‖ In argumentis Cacilius palmam poscit, in sermonibu. Plautus, in moribus Terentius.  Varro says, that he had, as to morality and good manners, borne the advantage over Cecilius and Plautus who had be eminent for other talents.  
But we must pardon this weakness in Homer, who writ in a time when Morality was hardly come to any perfection; the world was yet too young to be imbued with principles of modesty and decorum. Morality was more accomplished and better known in Virgil's time, in whom it was much more cultivated than in Homer's. For Virgil could not himself smother his sentiment as to the injustice of the civil war; though it had occasioned the establishment of the Empire, and that of Augustus' fortune. He could not approve it, and as if his heart had been republicane even in Monarchy, he condemns it, but with the greatest caution and tenderness imaginable, by cajolling even Caesar himself, who was the Author thereof; 
Tuque prior, Tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo  
Projice tela manu sanguis mens!—  So full was his Morality of honour and uprightness, and so opposite to that spirit of flattery, which that of Monarchy began to countenance.   

OBSERVE. VIII. Of Sentiments.  
THe Sentiments, which are the fourth qualification of the Poem, have so great a reference to Manners that the principles of the one are those also of the other. Nay it may be said, that the sentiments are in effect, but only the expressions of the Manners. It is not therefore to be admired, if Virgil have that advantage over Homer, since he had, after so singular a manner, that of the Manners. He has that obligation to the age wherein he writ, the spirit and humour whereof was much more just and polite than that of Homer, who made it not so much his business to think well, as to speak well: for his sentiments are never so excellent as his discourses. And therefore I shall not stand to make a long parallel between them, but only a particular observation of some of the sentiments which Homer attributes to his Heroes, whence a judgement may be framed of the rest. Agamemnon, in the first of the Iliads, says, that the reason obliging him to retain Chryseis, is, that he has a greater affection and esteem for her than for Clytaemnestra. A very kind Husband! to prefer a stranger before a Princess, who was his Wife, and a well deserving person.  
Nestor, in the 9 of the Iliads, tells Agamemnon, who desires his advice upon the distraction of affairs, by reason of the absence of Achilles, that he will give him an incomparable counsel, and that never any person since the beginning of the world, hath given any that was more prudent and more excellent. The good man reads a lecture full of ostentation upon the chapter of Prudence; and indeed considering his reputation of being so wise a man, he might have been more modest and reserved. Yet is not the counsel he gives him of so great account, since it amounted only to this, that Achilles should be appeased, satisfied, and by plausible insinuations, obliged to return to the Army. This argued not any great reach of policy; a person of ordinary endowments might have given that counsel.  
Antilochus, his Son, in the 23. of the Iliads, speaks to his Horses, enters into a formal discourse with them, and conjures them to do their utmost to get the better of Menclaus and Diomedes, in the course which was to be run at the Games, celebrated upon occasion of the death of Patroclus. He excites them with the most pressing earnestness of discourse imaginable; yet with very childish reasons, telling them that his Father, Nestor, will turn them out of his service, or get their throats cut, if they do not as they should do: in fine, he becomes a pathetic Orator to brute beasts.  
True it is, that Plutarch, in the discourse he made upon Homer, excuses him for the liberty he took to make Antilochus, in that passage, as also Hector in another, speak to their horses, upon the score of his opinion of the transmigration of souls, which he had taken from Phythagoras; But I refer myself to that philosophy, whether it renders beasts less beasts than they were, and more capable of harkening to reason.  
Jupiter tells Mars, in the fifth of the Iliads, after Diomedes had wounded him, that he could not endure him, that he deserved the misfortune which had happened to him, for having complied too far with the counsels of his Mother juno, whose humour was intractable. What kindnesses were these in the Prince of the Gods, towards his wife? What consolation to his Son Mars who was then newly wounded? We should never come to an end, if we minutely remarked all. Besides that, Virgil is not subject to those weaknesses, he is always serious, always great, always soaring on high, to keep up the Heroic Character: He does not abase himself to act the pleasant droll, nor fall down to a childish familiarity, contrary to the decorum of his rank, from which Homer many times degrades himself. This latter puts off that air of Majesty, which ought to be annexed to his character; he ever and anon falls into foolish freaks, by degenerating to the familiar way of talking, and turning things to an air of divertisement: as when, in the 8. of Odysseys. he entertains the Gods at a Comedy, some of whom he makes Bouffoons, by introducing Mars and Venus surprised in the nets laid for them by Vulcan. The battle between Irus and Ulysses, in the 18. book savours strongly of the Burlesque humour, as do also the character of Thersitis, and the wounding of Venus in the Iliad. But to do Homer all the right he deserves, we may justly affirm, that that weakness is not so much to be attributed to him, as to the age he lived in, which was not capable of any greater politeness   

OBSERVE. IX. Of Words.  
THe sentiments are the expression of the words, and the words that of the Manners. In this part, which is the fifth, according to Aristotle's order, Homer triumphs, and is most accomplished There is no contesting with him as to this advantage, which he has over all the other Poets, in such a manner as cannot sufficiently be expressed. 'twas also this admirable talon of wording well, that made Sophocles, who passes for the model of Tragedy, his perpetual admirer and most exact imitator: which gave the Critics occasion to call him 
‖ 〈◊〉.  The great Lover of Homer. Plato, for the same reason, in the 10. book of his Republic, calls him the Prince of Heroic Poets. Pindar, in the 7. Ode of the Nemaean Games, does not commend and admire him, upon any other account, than that of the loftiness of his discourse. And Longinus proposes him in his 
† 〈◊〉.  Treatise, as the most accomplished idea of a majestic stile.  
In fine it may be said, that it is upon this qualification he hath imposed upon all Antiquity; and that the elegance and excellency of his words and expressions was the charm and enchantment, whereby he merited the dmiration of all those who have had any acquaintance with literature, and that he hath engrossed to himself the esteem and consideration of all the Learned. For whereas the diversion and lustre of Poesy consists only in its expression, which is always in a manner the most remarkable part of its beauty, Homer, who hath excelled all Poets in the riches, elegance, and grandeure of his, hath thereby merited, among the ablest persons, that admiration which all ages have had for him. 'twas this that put Pindar, whom Horace proposes to himself for a model, and all the Greek Lyrics, into a despair of ever attaining the majesty of Homer's verses; Pindarus novemque Lyrici Homericis versibus canere timnerunt. And Paterculus hath this commendation of him in the first book of his History, Fulgore carminum solus Poeta appellari meruit; and a little after, mollissimâ dulcedine carminum memorabilis.  
'twas for this admirable advantage, that Lycurgus made so great ostentation of his Poesy, in the Oration he made against Leocrates; That Aeschylus says, in Plutarch and Athenaeus, that his Tragedies are but the crumbs of Homer's great banquets; That Plato affirms him to be the most accomplished and most divine of all the Poets; That Aristides says in the third Tome of his Orations, that no man ever spoke better; That Aristotle, in his Treatise of Poesy said, that he transcends all other in the height and grandeur of his expressions. Socrates, in one of his Epistles to Xenopon; Xenophon himself, in his Banquet; Democritus in Dion chrysostom, Aristophanes, in the Frogs; Hierocles, in his Fragments preserved by Stobaeus-Hermogenes, in his Ideas; Philostratus, in his Heroic Images, Theocritus, in his 16. Idyll; Moschus, in his third; Plutarch, in the Discourse he made upon Homer; Dionysius Halicarnassaeus, in the Construction of names; jamblichus, in the life of Pythagoras; Origen against Celsus, lib. 7. Thucydides, in the funeral Oration of Pericles; Maximus Tyrius, in his 16. Dissertation; Lucian, in the elegy of Demosthenes; Themistius, in his 16. Oration; Theodoret in the second Book de curandis affectibus Graec. and abundance of others do all affirm the same thing.  
But all these great persons, whom I have named, gave Homer these eloges, only upon the score of the beauty and lustre of his Discourse, for which he cannot be sufficiently commended. And it must be acknowledged, that, upon this advantage, which he hath in an eminent manner, he deserves to be preferred before Virgil; though Virgil be the most prudent, the most discreet, and the most judicious of all those that ever writ.   

OBSERVE. X. Reflections upon the Expression of Homer and Virgil.  
YEt is there still somewhat to be further remarked upon this expression of Homer, the lustre whereof hath so highly merited the esteem and applause even of all Antiquity.  
Transitions, which, upon the account of their character, aught to be very much varied, for the greater divertisement of the Reader, are much alike, in the greatest part of his work. We cannot reckon up above twenty or thirty sorts in the whole extent of near thirty thousand verses: and consequently one and the same connection, presenting itself ordinarily, is very apt to give disgust, by so frequent a repetition: which gave Martial occasion to make a little sport at the 〈◊〉 and to say, that the Latin Muses are not so light and such libertines us the Grecian; Qui Musas colimus severiores.  
The comparisons, in the same work, are flat, forced, not very natural in some passages, never very excellent, though, in so great a number as there are of them, it is impossible but there should be some pertinent and suitable enough. I shall say nothing of that which is grown so famous for its bluntness, its undecency, and its meanness, which is generally known to all, of the Ass feeding in a wheat field, and which the children would drive out thence with poles and staves compared to Ajax in the midst of an engagement o'erwhelmed with a haile-shower of blows by the enemies. I leave it to be imagined what a noble effect that should have in a production so grave and serious as that of the Iliad; and whether the draught and colours of this Comparison afford a prospect any thing pleasant, whatever light it be turned to. For these are some Grammarians, who set their wits on the rack to find some delicacy in it. Yet shall not stick to acknowledge, that there are in this Poet, some admirable comparisons, but very seldom to be met withal, wherein he exposes all that is imaginable of graces and beauty in the discourse and expression, and whereof Virgil hath so admirably made his advantage, and which he hath so well placed in his Work by assigning them his own air and light.  
Descriptions, which are to be accounted, what is most childish and of least force in Eloquence, are over-frequent in Homer's Works, and spun out too much; and they carry with them a certain air of affectation. The description of Alcinous's Garden in the seventh, and that of the Port of Ithaca in the thirteenth of the Odyssyes, are of that sort. The description of the Port, and that of the Grot inhabited by the Nymphs, takes up eighteen verses, upon which Porphyrius hath certain Commentaries. That of Virgil, where he describes Mount Aetna, in the third, consists only of three verses, though it might have given him so fair an occasion of dilating. True it is, the description of the Port of Lybia amounts to ten verses, and that of Fame, in the fourth, to much more: but the former is pardonable, in regard it was requisite to give the Readers mind some breathing-time, after that of the Tempest; and it is the greatest description of any place in the whole Aeneid. And the second, which is the description of Fame, is not the noblest part in that Author. For he is reserved every where else, and does not fall into those childishnesses, which Horace, in his Art of Poetry treats as insupportable in very serious matters.  
— Cum lucus & ara Dianae  
Et properantis aquae per amaenos ambitus agros.  
Aut flumen Rhenum, aut pluvius describitur arcus.  
These descriptions of Woods, Temples Rivulets, the Rainbow, and other pleasant things, have a smack of puerility, says that great man, and are no more suitable to great subjects, than a very rich and glittering stuff, to another that is very simple and modest.  
Incaeptis gravibus plerunque & magna professis  
Purpureus latè qui splendeat unus & alter  
Assuitur pannus—  
These far-fetched beauties never do well, in as much, as wherever they are placed, they cannot have any rapport to the rest, by the reason of their being too glittering; Non erat his locus— It must also be acknowledged, that Homer is more admirable than Virgil, in Epithets and Adverbs. This indeed is his Masterpiece never was there any imagination richer, or more happy, and it is but a raillery, to pretend that he repeats the 〈◊〉. There is no such thing, he is imposed upon; I have counted above twenty sorts of other Epithets in the Iliad, for Achilles alone. Virgil, in comparison, is poor as to those kind of ornamants, which proceed from the rich and fruitful treasury of the Greek Tongue, which the Latin has not. Yet may it be said of this exterior dress, what a certain person said, sometime since of a great Courtier, who was a very handsome person, that, if his ranting sleeves and Periwig, were taken off, he would be but as another man. For if we strip Homer of his Adverbs and Epithets, he would come into the rank of ordinary Poets. And that doubtless is the most ornamental part of him, and what makes up one of his greatest beauties.  
But it were not amiss, after all, to observe, that these Epithets, which so much adorn him, are very simple, obvious, and ordinary. For without any more ado, he calls snow white; milk sweet; fire burning. He does seek so much delicacy therein as our young Authors, who do not allow any epithets supportable, if they have not a kind of contrary or counter-signification to the words joined with them, to give a more extraordinary air to the discourse, and to make it glitter and sparkle by that opposition, of which the depraved taste makes a delicacy. For there are some who think it the pleasantest thing in the world to see those words joined together, which cannot endure one the other. Ovid, in his Metamorphoses and Heroic Epistles, and Velleius Paterculus were the first that gave that false gusto to their age, which was so much a lover of simplicity. Seneca would needs imitate them, with all the writers of Declamations, the fragments of whom we read in his Controversies; but they did it without that distinctive precaution, which is observable in Ovid and Paterculus, who knew how to be thrifty in the disposal of those counterfeit pearls, Lucan and Tacitus made that character their particular study, and made an art of clinching or quibbling, which for the most part is only a game consisting of words opposite among themselves, such as superficial wits are so much enamoured of. And in fine, 'twas consequently to the propagation of this universal debauch, that the Epigrams of Martial, and the Panegyrics of Pliny, Pacatus, and Mamertinus came into play. Not but that this kind of writing has its beauties, but they are like those of women who paint, and are forced to seek out exterior and artificial ornaments, because they have not any natural or real ones.  
Nor is it to be argued hence, but that an Epithet which is smart, brisk, and well placed, is a marvelous ornament in a discourse, as that used by Dido in her Epistle to Aeneas, Exerces preciosa odia— in the Heroic Epistles of Ovid, which always call the most glittering part in those works that are the pure productions of the mind, and whereto our Poets will never attain; And that which Velleius Paterculus gives to L. Domitius, when he calls him eminentissimae simplicitatis virum, and abundance of others which may be found in those two Authors. But whereas those kinds of expressions betray a certain lustre, it happens, that some have not the moderation requisite in the cautious husbanding of them which they had. For the ordinary imperfection of those persons who have the talon of expressing themselves in a pleasant and facetious way, is that they are apt to speak too much, in regard they suffer themselves to be transported with the success they meet withal, accustom themselves thereto, and at length become disgustful and importunate, through an excessive passion they have to be always divertive in their discourse. So that it were much better, in order to the preventing of this imperfection, and the more to keep themselves within the limits of sound sense, especially in a continued discourse, which ought to discover a certain character of grandeur and elevation, to forbear the use of those so far fetched Epithets, and such as have a certain air of mystery. Those which are the most obvious and common, and which best express the nature of the things, are always the most pertinent, such as are those used by Homer. I must acknowledge that to do this, there is requisite a greater stock of prudence and discernment, than of wit and fancy but men never speak well, but when they think wisely, and such as do so, are never short of their reckoning, as the Critic hath observed; Adeo nihil commodius est quam semper cum sapientiâ loqui. Which is to be understood, as much of the nature of the discourse, as of its morality.   

OBSERVATION XI. How the character of Homer is to be distinguished from that of Virgil.  
WHoever is desirous to judge with any kind of certainty of these two incomparable Authors, must be very exact in discerning between their several characters, which are extremely opposite. For if Homer be observable in the inclination he has to speak much, Virgil is remarkable for his inclination to be silent: and it is from this difference, that we may make an exact computation of the singularity of their Genius's, and of the essential mark of their character. There are many persons guilty of a great affectation to be thought Critics, and make it their business to judge of Virgil by profound reflections, without having ever observed in what the eminent quality of the fancy and judgement of that Poet, whereby he is distinguished from all the rest, does consist. For my own part, who admire nothing so much in his way of writing, as the admirable reservedness and moderation he is master of in expressing things, and in not expressing any more than what is requisite, I have ever been of opinion, that he might be distinguished by them. A man must be very attentive in the perusal of him; to find out that his reservedness and silence in certain passages, speaks much, and argues an exquisite discretion; and when he has discovered the secret of being well assured of his meaning, he finds him sometimes as admirable in what he says not, as in what he says.  
And for my part, I do not know any Author but Virgil that has a talon of prudence great enough to keep in the whole stock of his moderation and staidness of judgement, amidst the ardour and excitations of an imagination inflamed by the genius of Poesy, and that the most inspireed of any that ever was, Lucan, in comparison of him, is an inconsiderate writer; and Statius, a furious one. Nor could Ovid ever arrive to that excellency, till towards his latter days, when he writ his Fasti, which is the only part of his works, wherein he is moderate and discreet: in all the rest he discovers his youthfulness. Nor do his inductions of examples and comparisons in his books De Tristibus, and his other Elegies, come near that character; and his Heroic Epistles, which I call the flower of the Roman wit, have not any thing of that maturity of judgement, which is the transcendent perfection of Virgil. As to which particular I compare him to those Generals of Armies, who carry along with them into the midst of a fight all the phlegm and tranquillity of there Closet Counsels, and who in the greatest heat of action, amidst the noise of Canons, Drums, and Trumpets, and the general distraction and tumult of an Engagement, are not attentive to any thing but what their own prudence and moderation dictates to them, inducing them to consult only their own reason. And this is a character not to be imagined in any but great Souls, and such as dare pretend to a consummate wisdom, as was that o Virgil, who in the heat of his poetica fury, says no more than is requisite to be said, and always leaves more to be thought of, than he says of a thing.  
This is a commendation much like that which Pliny gives the admirable Painter named Timantes, whose elegy he makes in the 10. chap. of the 35. book of his History: Timanti plurimum adfuit ingenii, in omnibus operibus ejus intelligitur plus semper quam pingitur. And a little lower he adds, the better to express his reflection; Rarum in successu artis, ut ostendat etiam quae occultat: And which was that miraculous eloquence whereof Cicero speaks to his Friend: 
‖ Epist. ad. Att. lib. 13.  Sumpsi aliquid hoc loco de tuâ eloquentiâ, nam tacui. And it is my judgement, that in this exact circumspection, and this admirable parsimony of discourse, we are to find the true character of Virgil, who slightly passes over things, as a Traveller that is in great haste, without insisting too long upon them: he generously prunes & cuts off all the superfluities, that he may retain but what is purely necessary. And indeed in that anatomy of things consists the excellency of a work, which is never more perfect, than when there cannot be any thing cut off from it.  
It was also in this perfection that that exquisiteness of sound sense consisted, which reigned at Rome in the time of Augustus, and which was the character of all the excellent wits that writ then, and whom we look on as the only models of the purity of discourse, sobriety of expressions, and that admirable air of writing which is in vogue at this day.  
Of this we have a proof in the order which Augustus gave Tacca and Varius, to review the Aeneid, which the Author would have suppressed, as not thinking is complete. He permitted them to cut off those parts of it, which might be taken away without injury to the work; but he forbade them to do any thing thereto, nay not so much as to complete the Verses which were imperfect. 'twas the humour and gusto of that happy time to cut off what they could in discourse, to be sober and frugal therein, and to speak little. Lucretius, who is so pure and so polite had not yet attaied that perfection. And Catullus, who was the first among the Romans, that began to improve and heighten the Language wtih the advantages of elegance, had not as yet learned that great precept which Horace has since so much inculcated to the Pisones; — Prudens versus reprehendet inertes Ambitiosa recidet ornamenta; Luxuriantia compescat: He does not repeat any thing else, in his satire upon Lucilius: — Currat sententia, new se Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures. And a little lower, speaking of the same Lucilius, he says, that if he had flourished in his time, he would have known how to have contracted himself, and no doubt would have dashed out many things out of his verses; Detereret sibi multa, recideret omne quod ultra Perfectum traheretur— This was their course in that time, which they had learned from the dictates of sound sense, then in its Empire, which Virgil hath so well practised, and whereof he makes his essential character.  
On the contrary, that of Homer is observable for his tediousness in speaking and relating things. He is the greatest talker of all. Antiquity, insomuch that the Greeks themselves, though chargeable with excessive discoursing above all others, have reprehended Homer for that intemperance of words, as a considerable miscarriage in discourse, which they called 〈◊〉. He is ever in his rehearsals, not only as to the same words, but also to the same things; and so he is in a perpetual circulation of repetitions. That flux of the tongue, and that ebullition of fancy make him carry things much beyond the mark they ought to have been levelled at; and thence it comes, that the draughts he makes of things are for the most part too accurate; and by that means he leaves nothing to be done by the imagination of the Reader, who, in order to his particular satisfaction, ought regularly to be as much taken up with what he thinks of, as what he reads.  
Upon this account is it that Virgil never burdens his thoughts with the whole matter lying before him, that so he may leave some part of it exposed to the reflections of those who read him. Young Authors, who are all apt to be impertinently zealous in what they do, and to run into the character that has a smock of puerility; and all those who are less fortified with judgement, than fancy, are not able to comprehend this maxim: for, out of a defect of experience, they follow their natural inclination, and as by an excess of discourse and verbosity they carry things beyond their proper limits, so they ordinarily give ideas for true objects, by making too too accurate representations of all the matter they handle. This is an imperfection which Apelles reprehended in the Painters of his time, as Cicero observes, Pictores eos errare dicebat, qui non sentirent, quid esset satis.  
Yet are we further to observe, that this defect relates only to the expression and the words. For it is a very great perfection for any one to give the most complete images he can of things, and always to raise his superstructures upon the groundwork of the greatest ideas.   

OBSERVE. XII. Of the unity of the Subject and Time of the two Poems.  
YEt is it to be acknowledged, that there cannot be any thing more advantageously said of Homer, than what Aristotle, the wisest and most judicious of all the Critics, hath said of him. He proposes him in his Books of Poesy for the model of the Epic Poem, and he derives all his precepts from the Iliad and the Odyssey. But it may also be urged on the other side, that Aristotle having not met with, in his time, but only two inconsiderable Poems, one upon Hercules. and the other upon Theseus, whereof he speaks in his Poeticks, which might come into any contest with the Iliad and the Odyssey, it is not to be wondered at, that he takes these for a model, since the two others are rather the Lives of Hercules and Theseus', than the subject of an Epic action.  
And that was it made Horace speak so earnestly against those Poets, whom he calls Cyclick Authors, by reason of the pure natural and historical representation they gave of things, multiplying matters clearly against the simplicity and the unity of action, which is essential to the Epopaea: upon which score we are yet further to examine Homer and Virgil, that so we may not omit any thing required in an exact comparison.  
I grant, that as to the unity of the time, the Iliad and the Odyssey have the pre-eminence over the Aeneid: for the action of the Odyssey, from Vlysses' leaving Calypso to his being discovered, lasts but forty five days; and the action of the Iliad takes up but eight or nine months at most: and the Aeneid takes up a whole year and somewhat more.  
Nay some pretend that the unity of action is more perfect in the two Poems of Homer, than it is in that of Virgil; inasmuch as not only the action of both of them is one and the same, but also of one single person. For Achilles does all things himself; the same thing is to be said of Ulysses, (as Aristotle affirms) who reestablishes himself without the assistance of any other: and that seems to argue a certain hint of grandeur. Aeneas does not any thing but with the assistance of his people; which is not so much to be wondered at. And Paul Beni observes in the second of his Academical Discourses, that the Apologist of Dante pretends that his Poem is more perfect in regard it is the action of one single person: Costui Poema, oltre esser Heroico e fatto anco di attione, di uno assolutamente solo. E ciò ad essempio, non gia de l Aeneide, ove con assercito opra Enea: ma ben dell Iliad e Odissea; dove all fin e Achille e Vlisse solo fa Heroiche imprese: perciò conclude i i'll Poema di Dante sia eccelentement maraviglioso e This Poem, besides that it is Heroick, is also composed of action, and that of one person only: And this according to the example, not only of the Aeneid, wherein Aeneas acts with an Army; but also of the Iliad and Odyssey, where in fine both Achilles and Ulysses perform alone all the heroic actions: whence he concludes, that Dante's Poem is excellently marvellous and illustrious.  
To this it may be answered, that the unity of the person is sufficiently preserved by that of his Character and condition; That the Epic Poem ought to present the perfect Idea of a great Captain and General of an Army, and and not of a Knight-Errant, who most commonly is but a phantasm and a Romantic Palladine: and it frames a greater character of a Hero, and it attributes to him a much more noble air of dignity, to make him a Sovereign and the head of a people, as Beni observes in the same place: L' attione Heroica debbe esse una d'un solo, ma però Prencipe & capo di molti: in regard that, as he says, great enterprises, such as the conquest of Countries and Kingdoms, the sieges of Cities, and Battles, aught to be carried on by Armies, managed by the conduct and designs of one person, which is as much as is requisite for the unity of the action. Besides, there is always a defectiveness as to matter of probability in those actions of Knight-Errants and solitary Worthies, such as Hercules was, and however they are dressed up, they still smell strong of the Romance and Fable.  
Nay we may further add, that the unity of action, so it be rightly taken, is more perfectly served in the Aeneid, than in the Iliad, where after the death of Hector, which ought to have closed the action, there are still two Books to come; the 23. which comprehends the Exercises celebrated for the death of Patroclus, and which contribute nothing to the principal action; and the 24. which contains the Lamentations of the Trojans, and the ransoming of Hector's body, which have no connection to the principal action, that being complete without it.  
There is yet this further fault to be noted, that a Poem, which had no other design then to celebrate the honour of the Greeks, should be closed with that which is done to Hector, the chiefest of their Enemies, where the Poet employs a whole Book, to give the description of his funeral solemnities; which procedure seems to be in some manner defective; and it is of such a work we may cite that passage of Horace, which few understand as it ought to be understood;  
‖ Art. Poet. — Amphora caepit Institui, currente rotâ cur urceus exit? 
Homer takes his beginning the best in the world, for the honour of the Greeks: their glory is the only thing he prosecutes in all his work; and he makes an end by that of Hector, whose loss he brings in lamented with so much magnificence. Was it not a little mistake in him to forget the design he had proposed to himself? Does not the Aeneid take its period much better by the death of Turnus, which closes the action? Virgil does not carry on things any farther; he knew well enough, that he had committed a fault if he had not stopped there.  
Abundance of other observations might be made upon a minute examination of those two works; and particularly upon the delicacy wherewith Virgil reflects on things, wherein he hath still a great advantage over Homer, whose thoughts are not delicate upon any subject. For what more insinuating, what more surprising can there be imagined then that of the Apotheosis of Anchises, in the fifth of the Aeneid, which so highly flatters Augustus and the Romans, with an extraction whereof he so ingeniously establishes the Divinity? Not to make any mention of the most illustrious Roman Families allegorically deciphered in the combats described in the same Book, the mystery and application whereof Paul Beni explicates in his Commentaries upon Virgil.  
What is there to be found in Homer any way comparable to that passage, which I have ever looked upon as of exquisite delicacy, in the sixth of the Aeneids, where Virgil is content to attribute to the Greeks, the glory of being ingenious, reserving to the Romans that of Authority and jurisdiction?  
Excudent alii spirantia molliùs aera,  
Orabunt causas meliùs, etc.—  
Tu regere imperio populos, Roman, memento.  
What shall I say of the Littora littoribus contraria— in the fourth Book, which works so admirable an effect in order to the war between Rome and Carthage? Of Dido's imprecation, by the expression of so passionate a revenge? Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor, etc. which, in the obscurity of future events does so delicately point at the great Hannibal, the most illustrious enemy of the Common wealth, and with whom Rome was so long disputing the Empire of the world. The death of Marcellus in the sixth is of the same force, nay hath somewhat that is more insinuating and more exquisite, as it appeared by the impression which that passage on the spirit of Augustus, and much more upon the heart of Octavia his Mother, who fell into a swound at the very recitation, which Virgil made of it in the Emperor's presence.  
shall say nothing of all the complants of Dido in the fourth, which made Saint Augustine weep so often as, he himself acknowledges in his ‖ Confessions. 
Lib. 1. c. 14.  He is far enough from having that tenderness for Homer whom he compliments no better, then to call him dulcissimè vanus.  
In a word, Virgil is much more solid, his expressions have somewhat in them that is more real; He does not speak so much at random, nay his very discourses of greatest tenderness and passion, which in any other would discover a certain character of lightness, have not in his work any thing that is frivolous and chimerical; there is not any thing, but has some ground, and his words are so many things; which renders him more affective and more pathetical  
There are yet a thousand other passages, which I shall not stand to insist upon, as that of the second of the Aeneid;  
Iliaci cineres, et flamma extrema meorum which alone destroys all the objectios that may be made against Aeneas, of his defect in point of valour. The death of Dido, touched over with an air so pathetic, which begins with this Verse At trepida et caeptis immanibus;— The abbridgement of the Roman History graved upon the Buckler in the eight, the explication of the destinies of the Roman Empire by Jupiter, in the first, the Conquests of Augustus, to whom he dedicates his work in the sixth which make an admirable elegy of that Emperor, Hic vir hic est etc. and all those admirable insinuations, whereof he does with so much artifice make his advantage, to force his way into men's apprehensions, and to inspire them with his inclinations and affections, which every where bear the expression of his genius, which are are so many miracles of art, and cannot be perceived but only by such as are intimately acquainted with him, and accordingly able to judge of him. For there is a greater penetration and perspicacity of apprehension requisite, to discover what is good and excellent in a work, than to find in it what is defective: inasmuch as the defects are more remarkable than the true beauties, which easily elude the reflections of persons of an ordinary rate of understanding, and discover themselves only to the more intelligent.  
But whereas the noblest passage of Virgil, and his real Masterpiece, is the passion of Dido, I cannot let it pass without allowing it a stricter reflection than any of the rest. True it is, that Eloquence never employed all its advantages of artifice and ornaments in any Work with so great success as in that. All the degrees of that passion, all the renovations of that growing affection, and that well known frailty of the sex, are there discovered in such a manner as raises admiration in the best able to judge of them; and the greater their abilities are, the more will they be disposed to discover the excellency of that passage, and to admire all the parts of it. All is neat, delicate and highly passionate in the description of that adventure, and the world is not likely ever to see any thing that shall surpass it.  
Tasso indeed may haply afford us some passages which seem to have a greater eye of lustre, as that of the adventure of tancred and Clorinda: but if we look on him of all sides, we shall find, that all the proportions and correspondencies with the principal action, do not seem to be so exactly observed there, as they are in that of Dido.  
Yet is there one great reproach made to Virgil, to wit, that he has put a filthy slur on that Lady, by attributing so great a passion to her, contrary to her true character. For History makes her a woman of good repute. But this is an artifice, and that the most delicate and subtle of any observable in Virgil, who to excite a certain contempt for a Nation which was afterwards to be so detestable to the Romans, conceived himself obliged, not to celebrate any virtue in her, who should be the foundress of it, imagining he might, without any disparagement to himself, sacrifice her, the better to flatter his own Country, which no doubt, would have boggled at the reputation History gave that Princess. And whereas this artifice was advanced only to humour the Romans, and that the Poet himself looked on them as Masters of the world, with whose sentiments all other Nations ought to comply, or at least to conform thereto, yet he thought himself concerned to use all precautions, to prepossess their minds, upon that disguising of the truth. To that purpose he cunningly brings the Gods into the plot, to put a better gloss upon the sacrificing of her. Venus and Cupid make it their business. Nay he makes them use all their art to smother the good repute which common fame gave that Queen. This is the subject of Juno's complaint to Venus, which serves only to make a fuller discovery of the earnest solicitation of those two Divinities to surprise, and, in the end, to seduce Dido;  Egregiam verò laudem, & spolia ampla refertis Tup; puerque tuus, etc. 
The Characters of Sinon in the second of the Aeneid, and that of Mezentius, in the eighth and tenth, are also of the highest pitch of accomplishment. Homer indeed has many more of that kind, and a greater variety of them: but those on which Virgil thought fit to bestow a particular draught, are better prosecuted than those of Homer, and he has found the secret to express them with a greater liveliness.  
Yet must it be acknowledged that Homer has a better stored and more sumptuous stock of invention, and greater varieties; a more delicate and and divertive cast of versification; a more sparkling air of expressing things, nay a smarter and more piercing sound of words, more suitable to Poesy, and such as much more fills the ear; for the defect whereof ‖: Cicero found fault with Demosthenes: Vsque eò difficiles ac morosi sumus, ut nobis non satisfaciat ipse Demosthenes, non semper implet aures meas, ita sunt avidae & capaces, & semper aliquid immensum infinitumque desiderant.  
This indeed Homer has much beyond Virgil, and the ear is much more satisfied with the currency, the harmony, and the whole air of his versification; because the Greek Tongue has all those advantages over the Latin, which is more modest, more grave, and more serious. True it is also, that he has a greater extent of matters, and affords his Readers a larger prospect; but his fancy ever and anon hurries him from one place to another; he is not so much master of it, as Virgil is of his. 
In Bruto.  'twas this defect that made him commit that so essential an oversight of adding the two books of the Iliad after the close of the action; one, of the death of Hector the other, of the Games for that of Patroclus; and one other after that of the Odyssey, which is the mutual discovery, of one to the other, of Ulysses and Penelope. For as every Poem, as well Epic as Dramatic, aught to take its period with the close of the principal action, so after the said close, which ought to put an end to things, a man cannot make any addition thereto, without committing an extravagance.  
I find few passages in Homer, such as may be opposed to those of Virgil. Yet can I not forbear having a kindness for that of the sixth book of the Iliad, where Andromache, who was so honest and virtuous a woman, bids adieu to her Husband Hector, then going to his last combat with Achilles. In a word, 'tis impossible to imagine any thing of greater tenderness than that a??? dieu, wherein that Princess, by a presentiment of something disastrous, let fall some tears, a thing she was not wont to do, for she was not subject to any weakness, and the Poet says delicately enough, that she began to lament with her women, the death of Hector, who was yet alive.  〈◊〉 
True it is, that in regard people do bewail only dead persons, and that she bewails a man that is alive, that expression is tender and well imagined; there are but few such in Homer; for though the expressions are still kept up in him, and are not ever neglected, yet the things he says do as it were lagg and languish. Of this rank is the numbering of the Grecian Fleet in the second of the Iliad: all there is at the same rate, and the squadrons are all for the most part terminated by one and the same Verse: — 〈◊〉. And all the banquets of the Iliad are served up in the same fashion, without any variety.  
Nay Vlysses' being known by his wife Penelope, in the 23. of the Odyssey, which was the most favourable passage in the world to set all the subtleties of art on work, has nothing but flat and simple surprises, cold and heavy astonishments, and very little delicacy of sentiment and real tenderness. Penelope is too long obstinate, in opposing the reasons they allege to persuade her, that he is her husband, who contributes nothing himself to his own discovery; He suffers his wife to hearken too long to her distrust and circumspection; the formalities she observes to be assured of all things, are there set down by tale and measure, lest there might be any mistake, which methinks has somewhat that is mournful and languishing, in a place which required so much fire and vivacity. Ought not the secret instinct of her Love to have inspired her with other thoughts? And should not her heart have told her what her eyes did not tell her? For Love is illuminated and inspired; he has a secret and mysterious voice, which explicates his meaning better than the senses. But Homer was not skilled in that Philosophy, which the Italians have since so much taught; and Virgil, who makes Dido foresee the design Aeneas had to forsake her, before she had notice brought her of it, would have made a better advantage of that occasion.   

OBSERVE. XIII. That there is in Homer a greater air of Morality and sententiousness, than in Virgil.  
WE must not also dispute this advantage with Homer; for this is so true, that Macrobius lib. 5. c. 6. of his Questions, says that Homer has stuffed his Poems with sentences, and that his pleasant sayings were quoted by the People as Proverbs. Homerus omnem Poesim suam ita sententiis farsit, ut singula ejus apophthegmata vicem proverbiorumin civium ore fungantur. And an English Author hath lately given us a considerable volume of sentences collected out of Homer, upon all the matters of Morality, which he has reduced into common places.  
But I pretend with Heinsius. in his Poetical tract upon Aristotle, that those sententious reflections of Morality are rather designed for the Theatre, and of the Dramatic kind, than of the Heroic, the essential character whereof is Narration, which ought to be of a continued thread, and simple, without affectation of figures, and without all that tackle of reflections, which despoil a discourse of its natural colour and force: a fault wherewith that excellent Author of the Satyricon does so earnestly reproach the declamators of his time, Inanibus sonis ludibria quaedam excitando effecistis, ut corpus Orationis enervaretur, & caderet. By gingling and ridiculous discourses, you have enervated the body of the Oration, and brought it to the ground.  
In a word, that force which some pretend ordinarlily to sum up in a small compasle of words to make up a sentence, is wont to exhaust, and extremely weaken the rest of the discourse, by depriving it of its natural simplicity, and giving it a forced air. For this reason is Livy a much more accomplished Historian than Tacitus, in regard he has less reflections, which are more proper for the Theatre, than for History, and Narration. 
‖ Ad Ileren l▪ 4.  Cicero is also of that judgement in one of his Books of Rhetoric: Sententias interponi rarò convenit; ut rei actores, non vivendi praeceptores esse videamur. So that Sentences and moral reflections are a beauty not sit for the Epic Poem, in regard they are not suitable to Narration, which is the principal and essential character thereof. Yet may the Poet bring in to it some sentences or reflections, when he makes the Actors speak whom he introduces; but he ought not to do it, when he speaks himself, unless it be very seldom; and then too it must not seem to have been sought for.  
As to this we may safely imitate Livy who in the body of his History puts in very little of that kind, but reserves it to be said by those whom he makes to speak. So that the Poet is to let them slip by, without affecting to be the utterer of them, much less to scatter and strew them up and down as Homer does: and it is a mistake for any to think to esteem him upon that account, inasmuch as that affectation is certainly an imperfection, which Virgil found out a way to avoid; reflecting that there was not any thing more opposite to that simple and continued air, which he professed to observe, than those glittering words and fancies, which seem Independent from the discourse, and jutting out of the structure, in regard they are not well proportioned thereto, and serve only to magnify the Object, and make a noise; Rerum tumore & sententiarum vanissimo strepitu.  
And this has some reference to that great precept of natural reason, for those who make it their business to write; which one of the most expert and subtle Critics of all Antiquity gave heretofore, and which is not sufficiently understood: Curandum ne sententiae emineant extra corpus orationis expressae; sed intexto vestibus colore niteant: which passage I translate not, that all may be at liberty to render it, according to their several abilities. It suffices, as to what I pretend, that it appears, that Author, does in that place condemn the fancies which a too strong and too brisk expression, makes, in some sort, distinguishable from the body of the Discourse; he would have nothing over exquisite, or too far??? fetced, and that all the lustre be as natural to it, as colour is to garments. These sorts of simple and natural words, saith he, did natural reason dictate to Sophocles and Euripides, and which they saw it necessary to use in speech, before men bethought themselves of shutting up youth in Schools, and to limit all the exercises of the mind to pure Declamations. Nondum Juvenes declamationibus continebantur, cum Sophocles & Euripides invenerunt verba quibus deberent loqui. In a word, all these ornaments of words and brisk fancies so far-fetced and so frequent, deprive the discourse of its natural beauty and true dignity: 
‖ Cic ad Heren. lib 4.  Gravitas minuitur exornationibus frequenter collocatis, quod est in his lepos & festivitas, non dignitas neque pulchritudo, And this principal is general for all great things, whose grandeur attended by a regular simplicity, makes all the excellence and dignity of them; as we see in Painting and Architecture, where great fancies are kept up much less by the multitude of ornaments, than by that simple and even, but regular air, which gives them their grandeur and Majesty.   

OBSERVE. XIV. Showing how Homer has the glory of invention over Virgil.  
INvention, one of the qualities most essential to the Poet, is one of the advantages of Homer wherein he deserves preference before Virgil. For he is the Model, and original, which Virgil proposed to himself. But it is to be observed, that as 
‖ Poet. c. 23.  Aristotle makes mention of a small Iliad, attributed by Suidas to one named Antimachus, which was the abbridgment of a greater, upon which there is some likelihood that Homer framed his work; so it may be conjectured thence, that the glory of the invention was not wholly due to him.  
Besides, we read in 
‖ Lib. 3.  Athenaeus, that one Hegesianax had writ, in verse, before Homer, what had passed at the Siege of Troy. Cicero also makes mention of one calisthenes, who had written upon the same subject. 'tis true that he lived in the time of Alexander, that is to say, some ages after Homer: but it is to be conceived, that he had other collections different from those of Homer, since he gave a different account of that expedition, than he has done.  
Suidas affirms, that one Corinnus, a Disciple of Palamedes, had also written an Iliad in Verse, about the time that Troy was taken: and that another Poet, contemporary to Homer, named Syagrus▪ has also written upon that subject: That all those works were suppressed by the endeavours of Homer, who was not so blind, (as some have imagined) as not to make it his business to transmit his own labours only to posterity, and so to be accounted the first Author of the Iliad. And as the others were his model, as he was that of Virgil, so it were to be wished, that we knew, whether he has been as happy in the coppying of others, as Virgil has been in imitating him.  
But we are to make a great abatement of the esteem which all Antiquity hath had for Homer, if we credit what Aelian says in his 
‖ lib. 13. c. 14.  History. He pretends, that the opinion of the Learned of his time was, that Homer had not composed the Iliad and Odyssey, but only by fragments, not proposing to himself any continued design; and that he had not given any other title to those divers parts, which he had composed in the heat of his fancy & the impetuosity of his Genius, without any order, save only that of the subject and matter whereof he treated, as The valour and prowess of Agamemnon. The exercises instituted for the funeral solemnity of Patroclus; The engagement near the Ships, their Number; and so of the rest; That he had done the like for the Odyssey That Lycurgus was the first that brought from Jonia to Athens, those several parts, distinct one from the other, and without any connection; And that Pisistratus was the person who disposed them into some order, and, of them, made up the two Poems of the Iliad and the Odyssey, which we now have: And from thence, as some pretend, is derived the name of Rarpsodies, which hath since been given to those two Poems.  
But I find in myself a backwardness to assent to this story; for it were to deprive Homer of his greatest glory, to take away from him the disposition of his Poems: That were a weakness, which I cannot allow that great man to be chargeable withal, especially considering that Aristotle hath authorised the belief established since in all ages, to wit, that he is the true Author of those Poems, though Josephus in his first book against Apion, seems to be of the same opinion with Aelian, and Plutarch, in the life of Lycurgus, and Cicero in his third book de Oratore, give some occasion to believe it. But this opinion would so highly contribute to the absolute destruction of Homer's merit, that it were better to give Aelian the character of a collector of trivial stories. As for the other three, who countenance his sentiment, as they do not so peremptorily stand upon the affirmative, so we may well adhere to the common opinion, and be favourable to the reputation of Homer, which, as to this point, is too strongly established, to admit of any contest.   

OBSERVE. XV. Of the Exordiums of Homer and Virgil's Poems.  
IT were to be further wished, in order to the fuller satisfaction we might derive from an exact comparison of these two great men, that a parallel should be made, between the beginnings of the Iliad and Odyssey, and that of the Aeneid, which is the first touch towards the execution of those excellent Poems. For though the beginnings of great works ought to be simple and modest, as 
‖ Orat.  Cicero advises; Principia verecunda, non elatis intensa verbis, and that Horace so highly blames him who begins with so much pomp and ostentation Fortunam Príami cantabo, etc. yet were it not amiss to to take a fair start, and to begin well. The beginning of the Iliad, as I translate it, runs thus. Sing, O my Muse, of the wrath of Achilles the son of Peleus, that wrath which proved so pernicious to his own party, by abundance of misfortunes which itbrought upon them; it occasioned the death of many Heroes. He takes a pleasure in aggravating that wrath by its causes and effects; he advances things with a too-confident, too violent, and too hyperbolical expression, for a beginning: 
‖ 〈◊〉.  That wrath, saith he, made a bloody slaughter of the bodies of the Heroes. Thus Didimus, one of Homer's most exact Interpreters explicates him. He does not reflect, that it is his Hero, of whom he speaks, whose passion he aggravates, and that he seeks out extraordinary terms, to express the distraction it made in the Army whereof he was a great commander. He might have said things more in general, in a proposition which ought to be simple; there was no necessity of running it over again, 'twas enough that he had called that passion pernicious; there is a certain affectation in the repetition of it so often; and he takes a pleasure in amplifying what he ought to have concealed, or at least alleviated. He prosecutes things yet farther, saying, that that implacable wrath made the bodies of those Heroes a prey to all the dogs and birds. Nay so far was he possessed by that spirit of exaggeration, that he imposes upon him; for of that number of Heroes, whom the wrath of Achilles brought to destruction, we cannot in reason allow any to deserve that name but Patroclus; and I much question whether there were many among those that perished who might deserve it, or had a good title thereto, A man should never descend to that particularity in a proposition intermixed with invocation; but what this Poet adds completes his miscarriage, and makes an enormous contrariety; — 〈◊〉, 'Twas the will of Jupiter it should be so. He forgets that he is speaking to his Muse, which is a Divinity, that knows all things and ought not to have forgotten any thing of what it knows: He takes occasion to inform it, that it was the will of God▪ that things should happen so. It was the part of Homer's Muse to acquaint him with the secrets of the divine will, and what passes in the order of its Decrees, and not Homer's to tell that to his Muse, the Daughter of Mnemosyne and Jupiter, that is to say, of the Understanding and memory. It is yet much more strange in him to add those words to amplify the excess of the destruction, which that wrath had caused the Greeks, since it had obliged the Gods to concern themselves in the resentment of that passion, and that it was their pleasure, it should occasion that destruction of all the people of good repute in that Army. And it is to carry on the dreadful effects of that wrath to the utmost extremities, to authorize by the will of the Gods, the defeat of the Grecian Army, whose loss was the accomplishment of the good pleasure of Jupiter, who has the character of showing kindness. Upon that benignity his very name is grounded, which is the same as Juvans pater.  
It would be a hard matter to tell where this invocation ends: the two subsequent verses are part of it, and it is confounded with the Narration, if we look narrowly upon it: besides, to say the truth, what construction soever be made of those words, we shall find a certain affectation in them: he has a mind to fall a moralising too soon, when he does it at the very entrance of a work, which is not moral, and that at the fourth verse of it. The Readers mind is not yet prepared for reflections: it ought to have been instructed, prepossessed, and a little inflamed beforehand.  
The Exordium of the Odyssey is this, I know not whether it appear any thing more rational. Give me an account, O my Muse, of that subtle and expert man, who travel d through so many Countries, and crossed so many Seas; He suffered much indeed; but still he was extremely careful to preserve himself. He also took some care for the preservation and return of his companions: but he brought not one home, they all perished. An admirable Hero! whose essential character is to be subtle, crafty, and circumspect, yet the interpreters allay the signification of 〈◊〉, to excuse Homer. Put I do not see what allay can be allowed it; besides that in the whole prosecution of the story, the conduct of Ulysses bears no other quality in particular then that of craft, which is many times managed by impostures and lies, which is in no wise Heroick; and Minerva herself, however she may be favourable to him, cannot forbear reproaching him therewith.  
And if it be urged that that craft is a dexterity and readiness of wit, why does he not make use of it for the safety of his Companions, but employ all his subtlety to preserve himself? But they all perished through their own fault. Ought not this Hero, a person so wise, and of such extraordinary prudence, to have had conduct enough to secure them from that misfortune? Nay the very reason of their destruction is ridiculous and fabulous; They were destroyed for their having eaten the Sun's Oxen, This is a far-fetched destruction; the Hero, or the Poet was willing to be rid of them; and if Vlysses' providence had not been great enough to save his Companions who ran the same fortune with him, ought not the Poet at least to have dissembled it? Who obliges him to begin with that, and to advance that weakness of his Hero in the Frontispiece of his Poem, and the most obvious part of it, and to implore his Muse to celebrate the fame of that so subtle Hero, who made a shift to save himself, and suffered all that were with him to be destroyed? Is there any thing in the world less Heroic, more weak and more despicable than this? Tasso, in the proposition of his Poem, makes a good advantage of that fault, for the accomplishment of his Hero, of whom he says,  
— e sotto i santi  
Segni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti.  
The beginning of the Aeneid is more simple and more natural, and its proposition is without any difficulty. I sing, says Virgil, the arms and valour of that Man, who having retreated from the ruins of Troy, was the first that came into Italy. He had much to suffer, through the persecutions of the Gods, and the animosity of Juno. An enemy of that consequence renders him the more considerable. But after all that, he builds a great City, which is to be the seat of the World's Empire, and the Metropolis of the Universe. According to this model of comparison, all the rest may be compared at leisure.   

OBSERVE. XVI. The Conclusion of the Discourse.  
I Leave it to the decision of the Learned, what judgement ought to be made of both these admirable Poets, when they shall have taken the pains to inform themselves of the truth of these Observations, and have particularly reflected, that all the Grammarians, who are the true Critics of State having not been able to endure the lustre of Homer's manner of expression, and the magnificence of his way of versifying, which doubtless, is more brisk and glittering than that of Virgil, have suffered themselves to be dazzled thereby, and without penetrating to the ground of both their works, have for the most part attributed the advantage to Homer. But they all judge of of them as Grammarians, without considering the observations I have made.  
Nay Plutarch himself, in a discourse expressly writ by him upon Homer, expatiates much upon his great Learning, and the universal knowledge he had of all the sciences; and he sufficiently denotes the vast extent of that great Genius by the Idea he gives of his character, without insisting upon what is essential to the Poem. Accordingly, all the learned, who fix their reflections upon the expression of Homer, and the exterior part of his works, are not competent judges. To judge aright of them, they must take in the knowledge of what is essential, compute all the proportions thereof, consider whether the beauties are well placed therein, whether the intertexture of the probable part with the miraculous, be therein judiciously observed, whether the licences, which poesy permits, be not over confident, or violent, whether all the decorums, as to manners and sentiments be therein exactly prosecuted, whether the expressions be smart & passionate, whether every thing keeps its proper rank, and bears its true character, whether soundness of sense and reason spread through the whole production, and whether things are all as they ought to be: for nothing can please, if it be not so, according to the great precept of Quintilian; Nihil potest placere quod non decet. In a word, they are to judge of these great works, as they would do of a Palace or sumptuous structure, whose chief beauty consists in the proportion there is between the design in general and its parts, and their mutual rapport: this is that which such as are well skilled consider in them, without fixing their thoughts on the exterior ornaments, which take up the survey of the ignorant.  
To conclude there is among the Catalects of the ancient Poets, the fragment of an Epigram of an uncertain Authors, which may contribute somewhat to the judgement, which ought tobe made of Homer and Virgil's Poems. This fragment says, that the former is more ample, the latter more regular and complete. Virgil himself is the Epigrammatist.  
Maeonium quisquis Romanus nescit Homerum,  
Me legate, & lectum credat utrumque sibi:  
Illius immensos miratur Graecia campos,  
At minor est nobis, sed benè cultus ager.  
The lesser works are indeed ever more complete than the great ones, in regard the Authors may bestow more time and leisure in the polishing and perfecting of them.  
But in fine, to avoid being tedious by insisting on any further particulars, which to do, we should be obliged to borrow matter from Eustathius, and Servius, the most eminent and exact commentators of those two great men; methinks, I may say, without deciding any thing, as I have always pretended, that, according to the observations I have made, things may be thus divided: that Homer has more fancy, Virgil more discretion and judgement; and that if I should choose rather to have been Homer, than Virgil, I should also much rather wish that I had writ the Aeneid, than the Iliad and Odyssey. In which I have the approbation of Propertius, as it appears by his suffrage, which he bestows on Virgil, in so disinteressed a manner, For though his reputation were much more established than that of Virgil, and though the jealousy of the mind, which is the true self-love, be incomparably greater than that of the heart, yet does he not stick to take off the Crown from his own head, to place it upon Virgil's, and to acknowledge, that all aught to give him place, nay even Homer himself.  
Cedite Romani Scriptores, cedite Graii,  
Nescio quid majus nascitur Aeneide,  
FINIS.