The Iliad of Homer, Translated by Mr. Pope

HOMER is universally allow’d to have had the greatest Invention of any Writer whatever. The Praise of Judgment Virgil has justly contested with him, and others may have their Pretensions as to particular Excellencies; but his Invention remains yet unrival’d. Nor is it a Wonder if he has ever been acknowledg’d the greatest of Poets, who most excell’d in That which is the very Foundation of Poetry. It is the Invention that in different degrees distinguishes all great Genius’s: The utmost Stretch of human Study, Learning, and Industry, which masters every thing besides, can never attain to this. It furnishes Art with all her Materials, and without it Judgment itself can at best but steal wisely: For Art is only like a prudent Steward that lives on managing the Riches of Nature. Whatever Praises may be given to Works of Judgment, there is not even a single Beauty in them but is owing to the Invention: As in the most regular Gardens, however Art may carry the greatest Appearance, there is not a Plant or Flower but is the Gift of Nature. The first can only reduce the Beauties of the latter into a more obvious Figure, which the common Eye may better take in, and is therefore more entertain’d with. And perhaps the reason why most Criticks are inclin’d to prefer a judicious and methodical Genius to a great and fruitful one, is, because they find it easier for themselves to pursue their Observations through an uniform and bounded Walk of Art, than to comprehend the vast and various Extent of Nature.

Our Author’s Work is a wild Paradise, where if we cannot see all the Beauties so distinctly as in an order’d Garden, it is only because the Number of them is infinitely greater. ’Tis like a copious Nursery which contains the Seeds and first Productions of every kind, out of which those who follow’d him have but selected some particular Plants, each according to his Fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If some things are too luxuriant, it is owing to the Richness of the Soil; and if others are not arriv’d to Perfection or Maturity, it is only because they are over-run and opprest by those of a stronger Nature.

It is to the Strength of this amazing Invention we are to attribute that unequal’d Fire and Rapture, which is so forcible in Homer, that no Man of a true Poetical Spirit is Master of himself while he reads him. What he writes is of the most animated Nature imaginable; every thing moves, every thing lives, and is put in Action. If a Council be call’d, or a Battel fought, you are not coldly inform’d of what was said or done as from a third Person; the Reader is hurry’d out of himself by the Force of the Poet’s Imagination, and turns in one place to a Hearer, in another to a Spectator. The Course of his Verses resembles that of the Army he describes,

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They pour along like a Fire that sweeps the whole Earth before it. ’Tis however remarkable that his Fancy, which is every where vigorous, is not discover’d immediately at the beginning of his Poem in its fullest Splendor: It grows in the Progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on Fire like a Chariot-Wheel, by its own Rapidity. Exact Disposition, just Thought, correct Elocution, polish’d Numbers, may have been found in a thousand; but this Poetical Fire, this Vivida vis animi, in a very few. Even in Works where all those are imperfect or neglected, this can over-power Criticism, and make us admire even while we dis-approve. Nay, where this appears, tho’ attended with Absurdities, it brightens all the Rubbish about it, ’till we see nothing but its own Splendor. This Fire is discern’d in Virgil, but discern’d as through a Glass, reflected, and more shining than warm, but every where equal and constant: In Lucan and Statius, it bursts out in sudden, short, and interrupted Flashes: In Milton, it glows like a Furnace kept up to an uncommon Fierceness by the Force of Art: In Shakespear, it strikes before we are aware, like an accidental Fire from Heaven: But in Homer, and in him only, it burns every where clearly, and every where irresistibly.

I shall here endeavour to show, how this vast Invention exerts itself in a manner superior to that of any Poet, thro’ all the main constituent Parts of his Work, as it is the great and peculiar Characteristick which distinguishes him from all other Authors.

This strong and ruling Faculty was like a powerful Planet, which in the Violence of its Course, drew all things within its Vortex. It seem’d not enough to have taken in the whole Circle of Arts, and the whole Compass of Nature; all the inward Passions and Affections of Mankind to supply this Characters, and all the outward Forms and Images of Things for his Descriptions; but wanting yet an ampler Sphere to expatiate in, he open’d a new and boundless Walk for his Imagination, and created a World for himself in the Invention of Fable. That which Aristotle calls the Soul of Poetry, was first breath’d into it by Homer. I shall begin with considering him in this Part, as it is naturally the first, and I speak of it both as it means the Design of a Poem, and as it is taken for Fiction.

Fable may be divided into the Probable, the Allegorical, and the Marvelous. The Probable Fable is the Recital of such Actions as tho’ they did not happen, yet might, in the common course of Nature: Or of such as tho’ they did, become Fables by the additional Episodes and manner of telling them. Of this sort is the main Story of an Epic Poem, the Return of Ulysses, the Settlement of the Trojans in Italy, or the like. That of the Iliad is the Anger of Achilles, the most short and single Subject that ever was chosen by any Poet. Yet this he has supplied with a vaster Variety of Incidents and Events, and crouded with a greater Number of Councils, Speeches, Battles, and Episodes of all kinds, than are to be found even in those Poems whose Schemes are of the utmost Latitude and Irregularity. The Action is hurry’d on with the most vehement Spirit, and its whole Duration employs not so much as fifty Days. Virgil, for want of so warm a Genius, aided himself by taking in a more extensive Subject, as well as a greater Length of Time, and contracting the Design of both Homer’s Poems into one, which is yet but a fourth part as large as his. The other Epic Poets have us’d the same Practice, but generally carry’d it so far as to superinduce a Multiplicity of Fables, destroy the Unity of Action, and lose their Readers in an unreasonable Length of Time. Nor is it only in the main Design that they have been unable to add to his Invention, but they have follow’d him in every Episode and Part of Story. If he has given a regular Catalogue of an Army, they all draw up their Forces in the same Order. If he has funeral Games for Patroclus, Virgil has the same for Anchises, and Statius (rather than omit them) destroys the Unity of his Action for those of Archemorus. If Ulysses visit the Shades, the Aeneas of Virgil and Scipio of Silius are sent after him. If he be detain’d from his Return by the Allurements of Calypso, so is Aeneas by Dido, and Rinaldo by Armida. If Achilles be absent from the Army on the Score of a Quarrel thro’ half the Poem, Rinaldo must absent himself just as long, on the like account. If he gives his Heroe a Suit of celestial Armour, Virgil and Tasso make the same Present to theirs. Virgil has not only observ’d this close Imitation of Homer, but where he had not led the way, supply’d the Want from other Greek Authors. Thus the Story of Sinon and the Taking of Troy was copied (says Macrobius ) almost word for word from Pisander, as the Loves of Dido and Aeneas are taken from those of Medaea and Jason in Apollonius, and several others in the same manner.

To proceed to the Allegorical Fable: If we reflect upon those innumerable Knowledges, those Secrets of Nature and Physical Philosophy which Homer is generally suppos’d to have wrapt up in his Allegories, what a new and ample Scene of Wonder may this Consideration afford us? How fertile will that Imagination appear, which was able to cloath all the Properties of Elements, the Qualifications of the Mind, the Virtues and Vices, in Forms and Persons; and to introduce them into Actions agreeable to the Nature of the Things they shadow’d? This is a Field in which no succeeding Poets could dispute with Homer; and whatever Commendations have been allow’d them on this Head, are by no means for their Invention in having enlarg’d his Circle, but for their Judgment in having contracted it. For when the Mode of Learning chang’d in following Ages, and Science was deliver’d in a plainer manner, it then became as reasonable in the more modern Poets to lay it aside, as it was in Homer to make use of it. And perhaps it was no unhappy Circumstance for Virgil, that there was not in his Time that Demand upon him of so great an Invention, as might be capable of furnishing all those Allegorical Parts of a Poem.

The Marvelous Fable includes whatever is supernatural, and especially the Machines of the Gods. If Homer was not the first who introduc’d the Deities (as Herodotus imagines) into the Religion of Greece, he seems the first who brought them into a System of Machinery for Poetry, and such an one as makes its greatest Importance and Dignity. For we find those Authors who have been offended at the literal Notion of the Gods, constantly laying their Accusation against Homer as the undoubted Inventor of them. But whatever cause there might be to blame his Machines in a Philosophical or Religious View, they are so perfect in the Poetick, that Mankind have been ever since contented to follow them: None have been able to enlarge the Sphere of Poetry beyond the Limits he has set: Every Attempt of this Nature has prov’d unsuccessful; and after all the various Changes of Times and Religions, his Gods continue to this Day the Gods of Poetry.

We come now to the Characters of his Persons, and here we shall find no Author has ever drawn so many with so visible and surprizing a Variety, or given us such lively and affecting Impressions of them. Every one has something so singularly his own, that no Painter could have distinguish’d them more by their Features, than the Poet has by their Manners. Nothing can be more exact than the Distinctions he has observ’d in the different degrees of Virtues and Vices. The single Quality of Courage is wonderfully diversify’d in the several Characters of the Iliad. That of Achilles is furious and intractable; that of Diomede forward, yet listening to Advice and subject to Command: We see in Ajax an heavy and selfconsidering Valour, in Hector an active and vigilant one: The Courage of Agamemnon is inspirited by Love of Empire and Ambition, that of Menelaus mix’d with Softness and Tenderness for his People: We find in Idomeneus a plain direct Soldier, in Sarpedon a gallant and generous one. Nor is this judicious and astonishing Diversity to be found only in the principal Quality which constitutes the Main of each Character, but even in the Under-parts of it, to which he takes care to give a Tincture of that principal one. For Example, the main Characters of Ulysses and Nestor consist in Wisdom, and they are distinct in this; the Wisdom of one is artificial and various, of the other natural, open, and regular. But they have, besides, Characters of Courage; and this Quality also takes a different Turn in each from the difference of his Prudence: For one in the War depends still upon Caution, the other upon Experience. It would be endless to produce Instances of these Kinds. The Characters of Virgil are far from striking us in this open manner; they lie in a great degree hidden and undistinguish’d, and where they are mark’d most evidently, affect us not in proportion to those of Homer. His Characters of Valour are much alike; even that of Turnus seems no way peculiar but as it is in a superior degree; and we see nothing that differences the Courage of Mnestheus from that of Sergesthus, Cloanthus, or the rest. In like manner it may be remark’d of Statius’s Heroes, that an Air of Impetuosity runs thro’ them all; the same horrid and savage Courage appears in his Capaneus, Tydeus, Hippomedon, &c. They have a Parity of Character which makes them seem Brothers of one Family. I believe when the Reader is led into this Track of Reflection, if he will pursue it through the Epic and Tragic Writers, he will be convinced how infinitely superior in this Point the Invention of Homer was to that of all others.

The Speeches are to be consider’d as they flow from the Characters, being perfect or defective as they agree or disagree with the Manners of those who utter them. As there is more variety of Characters in the Iliad, so there is of Speeches, than in any other Poem. Every thing in it has Manners (as Aristotle expresses it) that is, every thing is acted or spoken. It is hardly credible in a Work of such length, how small a Number of Lines are employ’d in Narration. In Virgil the Dramatic Part is less in proportion to the Narrative; and the Speeches often consist of general Reflections or Thoughts, which might be equally just in any Person’s Mouth upon the same Occasion. As many of his Persons have no apparent Characters, so many of his Speeches escape being apply’d and judg’d by the Rule of Propriety. We oftner think of the Author himself when we read Virgil, than when we are engag’d in Homer: All which are the Effects of a colder Invention, that interests us less in the Action describ’d: Homer makes us Hearers, and Virgil leaves us Readers.

If in the next place we take a View of the Sentiments, the same presiding Faculty is eminent in the Sublimity and Spirit of his Thoughts. Longinus has given his Opinion, that it was in this Part Homer principally excell’d. What were alone sufficient to prove the Grandeur and Excellence of his Sentiments in general, is that they have so remarkable a Parity with those of the Scripture: Duport, in his Gnomologia Homerica, has collected innumerable Instances of this sort. And it is with Justice an excellent modern Writer allows, that if Virgil has not so many Thoughts that are low and vulgar, he has not so many that are sublime and noble; and that the Roman Author seldom rises into very astonishing Sentiments where he is not fired by the Iliad. If we observe his Descriptions, Images, and Similes, we shall find the Invention still predominant. To what else can we ascribe that vast Comprehension of Images of every sort, where we see each Circumstance and Individual of Nature summon’d together by the Extent and Fecundity of his Imagination; to which all things, in their various Views, presented themselves in an Instant, and had their Impressions taken off to Perfection at a Heat? Nay, he not only gives us the full Prospects of Things, but several unexpected Peculiarities and Side-Views, unobserv’d by any Painter but Homer. Nothing is so surprizing as the Descriptions of his Battels, which take up no less than half the Iliad, and are supply’d with so vast a Variety of Incidents, that no one bears a Likeness to another; such different Kinds of Deaths, that no two Heroes are wounded in the same manner; and such a Profusion of noble Ideas, that every Battel rises above the last in Greatness, Horror, and Confusion. It is certain there is not near that Number of Images and Descriptions in any Epic Poet; tho’ every one has assisted himself with a great Quantity out of him: And it is evident of Virgil especially, that he has scarce any Comparisons which are not drawn from his Master.

If we descend from hence to the Expression, we see the bright Imagination of Homer shining out in the most enliven’d Forms of it. We acknowledge him the Father of Poetical Diction, the first who taught that Language of the Gods to Men. His Expression is like the colouring of some great Masters, which discovers itself to be laid on boldly, and executed with Rapidity. It is indeed the strongest and most glowing imaginable, and touch’d with the greatest Spirit. Aristotle had reason to say, He was the only Poet who had found out Living Words; there are in him more daring Figures and Metaphors than in any good Author whatever. An Arrow is impatient to be on the Wing, a Weapon thirsts to drink the Blood of an Enemy, and the like. Yet his Expression is never too big for the Sense, but justly great in proportion to it: ’Tis the Sentiment that swells and fills out the Diction, which rises with it, and forms itself about it. For in the same degree that a Thought is warmer, an Expression will be brighter; and as That is more strong, This will become more perspicuous: Like Glass in the Furnace which grows to a greater Magnitude, and refines to a greater Clearness, only as the Breath within is more powerful, and the Heat more intense.

To throw his Language more out of Prose, Homer seems to have affected the Compound-Epithets. This was a sort of Composition peculiarly proper to Poetry, not only as it heighten’d the Diction, but as it assisted and fill’d the Numbers with greater Sound and Pomp, and likewise conduced in some measure to thicken the Images. On this last Consideration I cannot but attribute these to the Fruitfulness of his Invention, since (as he has manag’d them) they are a sort of supernumerary Pictures of the Persons or Things they are join’d to. We see the Motion of Hector’s Plumes in the Epithet [Greek], the Landscape of Mount Neritus in that of [Greek], and so of others; which particular Images could not have been insisted upon so long as to express them in a Description (tho’ but of a single Line) without diverting the Reader too much from the principal Action or Figure. As a Metaphor is a short Simile, one of these Epithets is a short Description.

Lastly, if we consider his Versification, we shall be sensible what a Share of Praise is due to his Invention in that also. He was not satisfy’d with his Language as he found it settled in any one Part of Greece, but search’d thro’ its differing Dialects with this particular View, to beautify and perfect his Numbers: He consider’d these as they had a greater Mixture of Vowels or Consonants, and accordingly employ’d them as the Verse requir’d either a greater Smoothness or Strength. What he most affected was the Ionic, which has a peculiar Sweetness from its never using Contractions, and from its Custom of resolving the Diphthongs into two Syllables; so as to make the Words open themselves with a more spreading and sonorous Fluency. With this he mingled the Attic Contractions, the broader Doric, and the feebler Aeolic, which often rejects its Aspirate, or takes off its Accent; and compleated this Variety by altering some Letters with the License of Poetry. Thus his Measures, instead of being Fetters to his Sense, were always in readiness to run along with the Warmth of his Rapture; and even to give a farther Representation of his Notions, in the Correspondence of their Sounds to what they signify’d. Out of all these he has deriv’d that Harmony, which makes us confess he had not only the richest Head, but the finest Ear in the World. This is so great a Truth, that whoever will but consult the Tune of his Verses even without understanding them (with the same sort of Diligence as we daily see practis’d in the Case of Italian Opera’s ) will find more Sweetness, Variety, and Majesty of Sound, than in any other Language or Poetry. The Beauty of his Numbers is allow’d by the Criticks to be copied but faintly by Virgil himself, tho’ they are so just to ascribe it to the Nature of the Latine Tongue. Indeed the Greek has some Advantages both from the natural Sound of its Words, and the Turn and Cadence of its Verse, which agree with the Genius of no other Language. Virgil was very sensible of this, and used the utmost Diligence in working up a more intractable Language to whatsoever Graces it was capable of, and in particular never fail’d to bring the Sound of his Line to a beautiful Agreement with its Sense. If the Grecian Poet has not been so frequently celebrated on this Account as the Roman, the only reason is, that fewer Criticks have understood one Language than the other. Dionysius of Halicarnassus has pointed out many of our Author’s Beauties in this kind, in his Treatise of the Composition of Words, and others will be taken notice of in the Course of the Notes. It suffices at present to observe of his Numbers, that they flow with so much ease, as to make one imagine Homer had no other care than to transcribe as fast as the Muses dictated; and at the same time with so much Force and inspiriting Vigour, that they awaken and raise us like the Sound of a Trumpet. They roll along as a plentiful River, always in motion, and always full; while we are born away by a Tide of Verse, the most rapid, and yet the most smooth imaginable.

Thus on whatever side we contemplate Homer, what principally strikes us is his Invention. It is that which forms the Character of each Part of his Work; and accordingly we find it to have made his Fable more extensive and copious than any other, his Manners more lively and strongly marked, his Speeches more affecting and transported, his Sentiments more warm and sublime, his Images and Descriptions more full and animated, his Expression more rais’d and daring, and his Numbers more rapid and various. I hope in what has been said of Virgil with regard to any of these Heads, I have no way derogated from his Character. Nothing is more absurd or endless, than the common Method of comparing eminent Writers by an Opposition of particular Passages in them, and forming a Judgment from thence of their Merit upon the whole. We ought to have a certain Knowledge of the principal Character and distinguishing Excellence of each: It is in that we are to consider him, and in proportion to his Degree in that we are to admire him. No Author or Man ever excell’d all the World in more than one Faculty, and as Homer has done this in Invention, Virgil has in Judgment. Not that we are to think Homer wanted Judgment, because Virgil had it in a more eminent degree; or that Virgil wanted Invention, because Homer possest a larger share of it: Each of these great Authors had more of both than perhaps any Man besides, and are only said to have less in Comparison with one another. Homer was the greater Genius, Virgil the better Artist. In one we most admire the Man, in the other the Work. Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding Impetuosity, Virgil leads us with an attractive Majesty: Homer scatters with a generous Profusion, Virgil bestows with a careful Magnificence: Homer, like the Nile, pours out his Riches with a sudden Overflow; Virgil like a River in its Banks, with a gentle and constant Stream. When we behold their Battels, methinks the two Poets resemble the Heroes they celebrate: Homer, boundless and irresistible as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines more and more as the Tumult increases; Virgil, calmly daring like Aeneas, appears undisturb’d in the midst of the Action, disposes all about him, and conquers with Tranquillity: And when we look upon their Machines, Homer seems like his own Jupiter in his Terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the Lightnings, and firing the Heavens; Virgil, like the same Power in his Benevolence, counselling with the Gods, laying Plans for Empires, and regularly ordering his whole Creation.

But after all, it is with great Parts as with great Virtues, they naturally border on some Imperfection; and it is often hard to distinguish exactly where the Virtue ends, or the Fault begins. As Prudence may sometimes sink to Suspicion, so may a great Judgment decline to Coldness; and as Magnanimity may run up to Profusion or Extravagance, so may a great Invention to Redundancy or Wildness. If we look upon Homer in this View, we shall perceive the chief Objections against him to proceed from so noble a Cause as the Excess of this Faculty.

Among these we may reckon some of his Marvellous Fictions, upon which so much Criticism has been spent as surpassing all the Bounds of Probability. Perhaps it may be with great and superior Souls as with gigantick Bodies, which exerting themselves with unusual Strength, exceed what is commonly thought the due Proportion of Parts, to become Miracles in the whole; and like the old Heroes of that Make, commit something near Extravagance amidst a Series of glorious and inimitable Performances. Thus Homer has his speaking Horses, and Virgil his Myrtles distilling Blood, without so much as contriving the easy Intervention of a Deity to save the Probability.

It is owing to the same vast Invention that his Similes have been thought too exuberant and full of Circumstances. The Force of this Faculty is seen in nothing more, than its Inability to confine itself to that single Circumstance upon which the Comparison is grounded: It runs out into Embellishments of additional Images, which however are so manag’d as not to overpower the main one. His Similes are like Pictures, where the principal Figure has not only its proportion given agreeable to the Original, but is also set off with occasional Ornaments and Prospects. The same will account for his manner of heaping a Number of Comparisons together in one Breath, when his Fancy suggested to him at once so many various and correspondent Images. The Reader will easily extend this Observation to more Objections of the same kind.

If there are others which seem rather to charge him with a Defect or Narrowness of Genius, than an Excess of it; those seeming Defects will be found upon Examination to proceed wholly from the Nature of the Times he liv’d in. Such are his grosser Representations of the Gods, and the vicious and imperfect Manners of his Heroes, which will be treated of in the following 1.1 Essay: But I must here speak a word of the latter, as it is a Point generally carry’d into Extreams both by the Censurers and Defenders of Homer. It must be a strange Partiality to Antiquity to think with Madam Dacier,*

"that † 1.2 those Times and Manners are so much the more excellent, as they are more contrary to ours"

Who can be so prejudiced in their Favour as to magnify the Felicity of those Ages, when a Spirit of Revenge and Cruelty reign’d thro’ the World, when no Mercy was shown but for the sake of Lucre, when the greatest Princes were put to the Sword, and their Wives and Daughters made Slaves and Concubines? On the other side I would not be so delicate as those modern Criticks, who are shock’d at the servile Offices and mean Employments in which we sometimes see the Heroes of Homer engag’d. There is a Pleasure in taking a view of that Simplicity in Opposition to the Luxury of succeeding Ages; in beholding Monarchs without their Guards, Princes tending their Flocks, and Princesses drawing Water from the Springs. When we read Homer, we ought to reflect that we are reading the most ancient Author in the Heathen World; and those who consider him in this Light, will double their Pleasure in the Perusal of him. Let them think they are growing acquainted with Nations and People that are now no more; that they are stepping almost three thousand Years backward into the remotest Antiquity, and entertaining themselves with a clear and surprizing Vision of Things no where else to be found, and the only authentick Picture of that ancient World. By this means alone their greatest Obstacles will vanish; and what usually creates their Dislike, will become a Satisfaction.

This Consideration may farther serve to answer for the constant Use of the same Epithets to his Gods and Heroes, such as the far-darting Phoebus, the blue-ey’d Pallas, the swift-footed Achilles, &c. which some have censured as impertinent and tediously repeated. Those of the Gods depended upon the Powers and Offices then believ’d to belong to them, and had contracted a Weight and Veneration from the Rites and solemn Devotions in which they were us’d: They were a sort of Attributes that it was a Matter of Religion to salute them with on all Occasions, and an Irreverence to omit. As for the Epithets of great Men, Mons. Boileau is of Opinion; that they were in the Nature of Surnames, and repeated as such; for the Greeks having no Names deriv’d from their Fathers, were oblig’d when they mention’d any one to add some other Distinction; either naming his Parents expressly, or his Place of Birth, Profession, or the like: As Alexander Son of Philip, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Diogenes the Cynic, &c. Homer therefore complying with the Custom of his Countrey, us’d such distinctive Additions as better agreed with Poetry. And indeed we have something parallel to these in modern Times, such as the Names of Harold Harefoot, Edmund Ironside, Edward Long-shanks, Edward the black Prince, &c. If yet this be thought to account better for the Propriety than for the Repetition, I shall add a farther Conjecture. Hesiod dividing the World into its Ages, has plac’d a fourth Age between the Brazen and the Iron one, of Heroes distinct from other Men, a divine Race, who fought at Thebes and Troy, are called Demi-Gods, and live by the Care of Jupiter in the Islands of the Blessed * 1.3 . Now among the divine Honours which were paid them, they might have this also in common with the Gods, not to be mention’d without the Solemnity of an Epithet, and such as might be acceptable to them by its celebrating their Families, Actions, or Qualities.

What other Cavils have been rais’d against Homer are such as hardly deserve a Reply, but will yet be taken notice of as they occur in the Course of the Work. Many have been occasion’d by an injudicious Endeavour to exalt Virgil; which is much the same, as if one should think to praise the Superstructure by undermining the Foundation: One would imagine by the whole Course of their Parallels, that these Criticks never so much as heard of Homer’s having written first; a Consideration which whoever compares these two Poets ought to have always in his Eye. Some accuse him for the same things which they overlook or praise in the other; as when they prefer the Fable and Moral of the Aeneis to those of the Iliad, for the same Reasons which might set the Odysses above the Aeneis: as that the Heroe is a wiser Man; and the Action of the one more beneficial to his Countrey than that of the other: Or else they blame him for not doing what he never design’d; as because Achilles is not as good and perfect a Prince as Aeneas, when the very Moral of his Poem requir’d a contrary Character. It is thus that Rapin judges in his Comparison of Homer and Virgil. Others select those particular Passages of Homer which are not so labour’d as some that Virgil drew out of them: This is the whole Management of Scaliger in his Poetices. Others quarrel with what they take for low and mean Expressions, sometimes thro’ a false Delicacy and Refinement, oftner from an Ignorance of the Graces of the Original; and then triumph in the Aukwardness of their own Translations.

This is the Conduct of Perault in his Parallels. Lastly, there are others, who pretending to a fairer Proceeding, distinguish between the personal Merit of Homer, and that of his Work; but when they come to assign the Causes of the great Reputation of the Iliad, they found it upon the Ignorance of his Times, and the Prejudice of those that followed. And in pursuance of this Principle, they make those Accidents (such as the Contention of the Cities, &c. ) to be the Causes of his Fame, which were in Reality the Consequences of his Merit. The same might as well be said of Virgil, or any great Author, whose general Character will infallibly raise many casual Additions to their Reputation. This is the Method of Mons. de la Motte; who yet confesses upon the whole, that in whatever Age Homer had liv’d he must have been the greatest Poet of his Nation, and that he may be said in this Sense to be the Master even of those who surpass’d him.

In all these Objections we see nothing that contradicts his Title to the Honour of the chief Invention; and as long as this (which is indeed the Characteristic of Poetry itself) remains unequal’d by his Followers, he still continues superior to them. A cooler Judgment may commit fewer Faults, and be more approv’d in the Eves of One Sort of Criticks: but that Warmth of Fancy will carry the loudest and most universal Applauses which holds the Heart of a Reader under the strongest Enchantment. Homer not only appears the Inventor of Poetry, but excells all the Inventors of other Arts in this, that he has swallow’d up the Honour of those who succeeded him. What he has done admitted no Encrease, it only lest room for Contraction or Regulation. He shew’d all the Stretch of Fancy at once; and if he has fail’d in some of his Flights, it was but because he attempted every thing. A Work of this kind seems like a mighty Tree which rises from the most vigorous Seed, is improv’d with Industry, flourishes, and produces the finest Fruit; Nature and Art have conspir’d to raise it; Pleasure and Profit join’d to make it valuable: and they who find the justest Faults, have only said, that a few Branches (which run luxuriant thro’ a Richness of Nature) might be lopp’d into Form to give it a more regular Appearance.

Having now spoken of the Beauties and Defects of the Original, it remains to treat of the Translation, with the same View to the chief Characteristic. As far as that is seen in the main Parts of the Poem, such as the Fable, Manners, and Sentiments, no Translator can prejudice it but by wilful Omissions or Contractions. As it also breaks out in every particular Image, Description, and Simile; whoever lessens or too much softens those, takes off from this chief Character. It is the first grand Duty of an Interpreter to give his Author entire and unmaim’d; and for the rest, the Diction and Versification only are his proper Province; since these must be his own, but the others he is to take as he finds them.

It should then be consider’d what Methods may afford some Equivalent in our Language for the Graces of these in the Greek. It is certain no literal Translation can be just to an excellent Original in a superior Language: but it is a great Mistake to imagine (as many have done) that a rash Paraphrase can make amends for this general Defect; which is no less in danger to lose the Spirit of an Ancient, by deviating into the modern Manners of Expression. If there be sometimes a Darkness, there is often a Light in Antiquity, which nothing better preserves than a Version almost literal. I know no Liberties one ought to take, but those which are necessary for transfusing the Spirit of the Original, and supporting the Poetical Style of the Translation: and I will venture to say, there have not been more Men misled in former times by a servile dull Adherence to the Letter, than have been deluded in ours by a chimerical insolent Hope of raising and improving their Author. It is not to be doubted that the Fire of the Poem is what a Translator should principally regard, as it is most likely to expire in his managing: However it is his safest way to be content with preserving this to his utmost in the Whole, without endeavouring to be more than he finds his Author is, in any particular Place. ’Tis a great Secret in Writing to know when to be plain, and when poetical and figurative; and it is what Homer will teach us if we will but follow modestly in his Footsteps. Where his Diction is bold and lofty, let us raise ours as high as we can; but where his is plain and humble, we ought not to be deterr’d from imitating him by the fear of incurring the Censure of a meer English Critick. Nothing that belongs to Homer seems to have been more commonly mistaken than the just Pitch of his Style: Some of his Translators having swell’d into Fustian in a proud Confidence of the Sublime; others sunk into Flatness in a cold and timorous Notion of Simplicity. Methinks I see these different Followers of Homer, some sweating and straining after him by violent Leaps and Bounds, (the certain Signs of false Mettle) others slowly and servilely creeping in his Train, while the Poet himself is all the time proceeding with an unaffected and equal Majesty before them. However of the two Extreams one could sooner pardon Frenzy than Frigidity: No Author is to be envy’d for such Commendations as he may gain by that Character of Style, which his Friends must agree together to call Simplicity, and the rest of the World will call Dulness. There is a graceful and dignify’d Simplicity, as well as a bald and sordid one, which differ as much from each other as the Air of a plain Man from that of a Sloven: ’Tis one thing to be tricked up, and another not to be dress’d at all. Simplicity is the Mean between Ostentation and Rusticity.

This pure and noble Simplicity is no where in such Perfection as in the Scripture and our Author. One may affirm with all respect to the inspired Writings, that the Divine Spirit made use of no other Words but what were intelligible and common to Men at that Time, and in that Part of the World; and as Homer is the Author nearest to those, his Style must of course bear a greater Resemblance to the sacred Books than that of any other Writer. This Consideration (together with what has been observ’d of the Parity of some of his Thoughts) may methinks induce a Translator on the one hand to give into several of those general Phrases and Manners of Expression, which have attain’d a Veneration even in our Language from their use in the Old Testament; as on the other, to avoid those which have been appropriated to the Divinity, and in a manner consign’d to Mystery and Religion.

For a farther Preservation of this Air of Simplicity, a particular Care should be taken to express with all Plainness those Moral Sentences and Proverbial Speeches which are so numerous in this Poet. They have something Venerable, and as I may say Oracular, in that unadorn’d Gravity and Shortness with which they are deliver’d: a Grace which would be utterly lost by endeavouring to give them what we call a more ingenious (that is a more modern) Turn in the Paraphrase.

〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 Perhaps the Mixture of some Graecisms and old Words after the manner of Milton, if done without too much Affectation, might not have an ill Effect in a Version of this particular Work, which most of any other seems to require a venerable Antique Cast. But certainly the use of modern Terms of War and Government, such as Platoon, Campagne, Junto, or the like (which some of his Translators have fallen into) cannot be allowable; those only excepted, without which it is impossible to treat the Subjects in any living Language.

There are two Peculiarities in Homer’s Diction that are a sort of Marks or Moles, by which every common Eye distinguishes him at first sight: Those who are not his greatest Admirers look upon them as Defects, and those who are seem pleased with them as Beauties. I speak of his Compound-Epithets and of his Repetitions. Many of the former cannot be done literally into English without destroying the Purity of our Language. I believe such should be retain’d as slide easily of themselves into an English-Compound, without Violence to the Ear or to the receiv’d Rules of Composition; as well as those which have receiv’d a Sanction from the Authority of our best Poets, and are become familiar thro’ their use of them; such as the Cloud-compelling Jove, &c. As for the rest, whenever any can be as fully and significantly exprest in a single word as in a compounded one, the Course to be taken is obvious.

Some that cannot be so turn’d as to preserve their full Image by one or two Words, may have Justice done them by Circumlocution; as the Epithet [Greek]to a Mountain would appear little or ridiculous translated literally Leaf-shaking, but affords a majestic Idea in the Periphrasis: The lofty Mountains shakes his waving Woods. Others that admit of differing Significations, may receive an Advantage by a judicious Variation according to the Occasions on which they are introduc’d. For Example, the Epithet of Apollo, [Greek], or far-shooting, is capable of two Explications; one literal in respect of the Darts and Bow, the Ensigns of that God; the other allegorical with regard to the Rays of the Sun: Therefore in such Places where Apollo is represented as a God in Person, I would use the former Interpretation, and where the Effects of the Sun are describ’d, I would make choice of the latter. Upon the whole, it will be necessary to avoid that perpetual Repetition of the same Epithets which we find in Homer, and which, tho’ it might be accommodated (as has been already shewn) to the Ear of those Times, is by no means so to ours: But one may wait for Opportunities of placing them, where they derive an additional Beauty from the Occasions on which they are employed; and in doing this properly, a Translator may at once shew his Fancy and his Judgment.

As for Homer’s Repetitions; we may divide them into three sorts; of whole Narrations and Speeches, of single Sentences, and of one Verse or Hemistich. I hope it is not impossible to have such a Regard to these, as neither to lose so known a Mark of the Author on the one hand, nor to offend the Reader too much on the other. The Repetition is not ungraceful in those Speeches where the Dignity of the Speaker renders it a sort of Insolence to alter his Words; as in the Messages from Gods to Men, or from higher Powers to Inferiors in Concerns of State, or where the Ceremonial of Religion seems to require it, in the solemn Forms of Prayers, Oaths, or the like. In other Cases, I believe the best Rule is to be guided by the Nearness, or Distance, at which the Repetitions are plac’d in the Original: When they follow too close one may vary the Expression, but it is a Question whether a profess’d Translator be authorized to omit any: If they be tedious, the Author is to answer for it.

It only remains to speak of the Versification. Homer (as has been said) is perpetually applying the Sound to the Sense, and varying it on every new Subject. This is indeed one of the most exquisite Beauties of Poetry, and attainable by very few: I know only of Homer eminent for it in the Greek, and Virgil in Latine. I am sensible it is what may sometimes happen by Chance, when a Writer is warm, and fully possest of his Image: however it may be reasonably believed they design’d this, in whose Verse it so manifestly appears in a superior degree to all others. Few Readers have the Ear to be Judges of it, but those who have will see I have endeavour’d at this Beauty.

Upon the whole, I must confess my self utterly incapable of doing Justice to Homer. I attempt him in no other Hope but that which one may entertain without much Vanity, of giving a more tolerable Copy of him than any entire Translation in Verse has yet done. We have only those of Chapman, Hobbes, and Ogilby. Chapman has taken the Advantage of an immeasurable Length of Verse, notwithstanding which there is scarce any Paraphrase more loose and rambling than his. He has frequent Interpolations of four or six Lines, and I remember one in the thirteenth Book of the Odysses, ver. 312. where he has spun twenty Verses out of two. He is often mistaken in so bold a manner, that one might think he deviated on purpose, if he did not in other Places of his Notes insist so much upon Verbal Trifles. He appears to have had a strong Affectation of extracting new Meanings out of his Author, insomuch as to promise in his Rhyming Preface, a Poem of the Mysteries he had revealed in Homer; and perhaps he endeavoured to strain the obvious Sense to this End. His Expression is involved in Fustian, a Fault for which he was remarkable in his Original Writings, as in the Tragedy of Bussyd’ Amboise, &c. In a word, the Nature of the Man may account for his whole Performance; for he appears from his Preface and Remarks to have been of an arrogant Turn, and an Enthusiast in Poetry. His own Boast of having finish’d half the Iliad in less than fifteen Weeks, shews with what Negligence his Version was performed. But that which is to be allowed him, and which very much contributed to cover his Defects, is a daring fiery Spirit that animates his Translation, which is something like what one might imagine Homer himself would have writ before he arriv’d to Years of Discretion. Hobbes has given us a correct Explanation of the Sense in general, but for Particulars and Circumstances he continually lopps them, and often omits the most beautiful. As for its being esteem’d a close Translation, I doubt not many have been led into that Error by the Shortness of it, which proceeds not from his following the Original Line by Line, but from the Contractions above-mentioned. He sometimes omits whole Similes and Sentences, and is now and then guilty of Mistakes which no Writer of his Learning could have fallen into, but thro’ Carelesness. His Poetry, as well as Ogilby’s, is too mean for Criticism.

It is a great Loss to the Poetical World that Mr. Dryden did not live to translate the Iliad. He has left us only the first Book and a small Part of the sixth; in which if he has in some Places not truly interpreted the Sense, or preserved the Antiquities, it ought to be excused on account of the Haste he was obliged to write in. He seems to have had too much Regard to Chapman, whose Words he sometimes copies, and has unhappily follow’d him in Passages where he wanders from the Original. However had he translated the whole Work, I would no more have attempted Homer after him than Virgil, his Version of whom (notwithstanding some human Errors) is the most noble and spirited Translation I know in any Language. But the Fate of great Genius’s is like that of great Ministers, tho’ they are confessedly the first in the Commonwealth of Letters, they must be envy’d and calumniated only for being at the Head of it.

That which in my Opinion ought to be the Endeavour of any one who translates Homer, is above all things to keep alive that Spirit and Fire which makes his chief Character. In particular Places, where the Sense can bear any Doubt, to follow the strongest and most Poetical, as most agreeing with that Character. To copy him in all the Variations of his Style, and the different Modulations of his Numbers. To preserve in the more active or descriptive Parts, a Warmth and Elevation; in the more sedate or narrative, a Plainness and Solemnity; in the Speeches a Fulness and Perspicuity; in the Sentences a Shortness and Gravity. Not to neglect even the little Figures and Turns on the Words, nor sometimes the very Cast of the Periods. Neither to omit or confound any Rites or Customs of Antiquity. Perhaps too he ought to include the whole in a shorter Compass, than has hitherto been done by any Translator who has tolerably preserved either the Sense or Poetry. What I would farther recommend to him, is to study his Author rather from his own Text than from any Commentaries, how learned soever, or whatever Figure they make in the Estimation of the World. To consider him attentively in Comparison with Virgil above all the Ancients, and with Milton above all the Moderns. Next these the Archbishop of Cambray’s Telemachus may give him the truest Idea of the Spirit and Turn of our Author, and Bossu’s admirable Treatise of the Epic Poem the justest Notion of his Design and Conduct. But after all, with whatever Judgment and Study a Man may proceed, or with whatever Happiness he may perform such a Work; he must hope to please but a few, those only who have at once a Taste of Poetry, and competent Learning. For to satisfy such as want either, is not in the Nature of this Undertaking; since a meer Modern Wit can like nothing that is not Modern, and a Pedant nothing that is not Greek. What I have done is submitted to the Publick, from whose Opinions I am prepared to learn; tho’ I fear no Judges so little as our best Poets, who are most sensible of the Weight of this Task. As for the worst, whatever they shall please to say, they may give me some Concern as they are unhappy Men, but none as they are malignant Writers. I was guided in this Translation by Judgments very different from theirs, and by Persons for whom they can have no Kindness, if an old Observation be true, that the strongest Antipathy in the World is that of Fools to Men of Wit. Mr. Addison was the first whose Advice determin’d me to undertake this Task, who was pleas’d to write to me upon that Occasion in such Terms as I cannot repeat without Vanity. I was obliged to Sir Richard Steele for a very early Recommendation of my Undertaking to the Publick. Dr. Swift promoted my Interest with that Warmth with which he always serves his Friend. The Humanity and Frankness of Sir Samuel Garth are what I never knew wanting on any Occasion. I must also acknowledge with infinite Pleasure the many friendly Offices as well as sincere Criticisms of Mr. Congreve, who had led me the way in translating some Parts of Homer, as I wish for the sake of the World he had prevented me in the rest. I must add the Names of Mr. Rowe and Dr. Parnell, tho’ I shall take a farther Opportunity of doing Justice to the last, whose Good-nature (to give it a great Panegyrick) is no less extensive than his Learning. The Favour of these Gentlemen is not entirely undeserved by one who bears them so true an Affection. But what can I say of the Honour so many of the Great have done me, while the First Names of the Age appear as my Subscribers, and the most distinguish’d Patrons and Ornaments of Learning as my chief Encouragers. Among these it is a particular Pleasure to me to find, that my highest Obligations are to such who have done most Honour to the Name of Poet: That his Grace the Duke of Buckingham was not displeas’d I should undertake the Author to whom he has given (in his excellent Essay ) the finest Praise he ever yet receiv’d.

Read Homer once , and you can read no more; For all things else appear so mean and poor, Verse will seem Prose: yet often on him look, And you will hardly need another Book.

That the Earl of Halifax was one of the first to favour me, of whom it is hard to say whether the Advancement of the Polite Arts is more owing to his Generosity or his Example. That such a Genius as my Lord Bolingbroke, not more distinguished in the great Scenes of Business than in all the useful and entertaining Parts of Learning, has not refus’d to be the Critick of these Sheets, and the Patron of their Writer. And that so excellent an Imitator of Homer as the noble Author of the Tragedy of Heroic Love, has continu’d his Partiality to me from my writing Pastorals to my attempting the Iliad. I cannot deny my self the Pride of confessing, that I have had the Advantage not only of their Advice for the Conduct in general, but their Correction of several Particulars of this Translation.

I could say a great deal of the Pleasure of being distinguish’d by the Earl of Carnarvon, but it is almost absurd to particularize any one generous Action in a Person whose whole Life is a continued Series of them. The Right Honourable Mr. Stanhope, the present Secretary of State, will pardon my Desire of having it known that he was pleas’d to promote this Affair. The particular Zeal of Mr. Harcourt (the Son of the late Lord Chancellor) gave me a Proof how much I am honour’d in a Share of his Friendship. I must attribute to the same Motive that of several others of my Friends, to whom all Acknowledgments are render’d unnecessary by the Privileges of a familiar Correspondence: And I am satisfy’d I can no way better oblige Men of their Turn, than by my Silence.

In short, I have found more Patrons than ever Homer wanted. He would have thought himself happy to have met the same Favour at Athens, that has been shewn me by its learned Rival, the University of Oxford. If my Author had the Wits of After-Ages for his Defenders, his Translator has had the Beauties of the present for his Advocates; a Pleasure too great to be changed for any Fame in Reversion. And I can hardly envy him those pompous Honours he receiv’d after Death, when I reflect on the Enjoyment of so many agreeable Obligations, and easy Friendships which make the Satisfaction of Life. This Distinction is the more to be acknowledg’d, as it is shewn to one whose Pen has never gratify’d the Prejudices of particular Parties, or the Vanities of particular Men. Whatever the Success may prove, I shall never repent of an Undertaking in which I have experienc’d the Candour and Friendship of so many Persons of Merit; and in which I hope to pass some of those Years of Youth that are generally lost in a Circle of Follies, after a manner neither wholly unuseful to others, nor disagreeable to my self.

THERE is something in the Mind of Man, which goes beyond bare Curiosity, and even carries us on to a Shadow of Friendship with those great Genius’s whom we have known to excel in former Ages. Nor will it appear less to any one, who considers how much it partakes of the Nature of Friendship; how it compounds itself of an Admiration rais’d by what we meet with concerning them; a Tendency to be farther acquainted with them, by gathering every Circumstance of their Lives; a kind of Complacency in their Company, when we retire to enjoy what they have left; an Union with them in those Sentiments they approve; and an Endeavour to defend them, when we think they are injuriously attack’d, or even sometimes with too partial an Affection.

There is also in Mankind a Spirit of Envy or Opposition, which makes them uneasy to see others of the same Species seated far above them in a sort of Perfection. And this, at least so far as we speak of the Fame of Writers, has not always been known to dye with a Man entirely, but to pursue his Remains with idle Traditions, and weak Conjectures; so that his Name, which is not to be forgotten, shall be preserv’d only to be stain’d and blotted. The Controversy, which was carry’d on between the Author and his Enemies, while he yet was living, shall still be kept on foot; not entirely upon his own account, but on theirs who live after him; some being fond to praise extravagantly, and others as rashly eager to contradict his Admirers. This Proceeding, on both sides, gives us an Image of the first Descriptions of War, such as the Iliad affords; where a Heroe disputes the Field with an Army ’til it is his time to dye, and then the Battel, which we expected to fall of course, is renew’d about the Body; his Friends contending that they may embalm and honour it, his Enemies that they may cast it to the Dogs and Vultures.

There are yet others of a low kind of Taste, who, without any Malignity to the Character of a great Author, lessen the Dignity of their Subject by insisting too meanly upon little Particularities. They imagine it the Part of an Historian to omit nothing they meet concerning him whom they write upon; and gather every thing wherein he is nam’d, without any distinction, to the Prejudice or Neglect of the more noble Parts of his Character: Like those trifling Painters, or Sculptors, who bestow infinite Pains and Patience upon the most insignificant Parts of a Figure, ’till they sink the Grandeur of the Whole, by finishing every thing with the neatest Want of Judgment.

Besides these, there is a fourth sort of Men, who pretend to divest themselves of impetuous Emotions on both sides, and to get above that imperfect Idea of their Subject, which little Writers fall into; who propose to themselves a calm Search after Truth, and a rational Adherence to Probability in their historical Collections: Who neither wish to be led into the Fables of Poetry, nor are willing to support the Falsehoods of a malignant Criticism; but, endeavouring to steer in a middle way, have obtain’d a Character of failing least in the Choice of Materials for History, even from the darkest Ages.

Being therefore to write something concerning a Life, which there is little Prospect of our knowing, after it has been the fruitless Enquiry of so many Ages, and which has however been thus differently treated by Historians, I shall endeavour to speak of it, not as a Certainty, but as the Tradition, Opinion, or Collection of Authors, who have been suppos’d to write of Homer in these four preceding Methods, to which we shall also add some farther Conjectures of our own. After his Life has been thus rather spoken of than discover’d, I shall consider him historically as an Author, with regard to those Works which he has left behind him: In doing which, we may trace the degrees of Esteem they have obtain’d in different Periods of Time, and regulate our present Opinion of them, by a View of that Age in which they were written.

I. If we take a View of Homer in those fabulous Traditions which the Admiration of the ancient Heathens has occasion’d, we find them running to Superstition, and multiply’d and independent on one another, in the different Accounts which are given with respect to Aegypt and Greece, the two native Countreys of Fable.

We have one in Eustathius most strangely fram’d, which Alexander Paphius has reported concerning Homer’s Birth and Infancy. That

"He was born in Aegypt of Dmasagoras and Aethra, and brought up by a Daughter of Orus, the Priest of Isis, who was herself a Prophetess, and from whose Breasts Drops of Honey would frequently distil into the Mouth of the Infant. In the Night-time the first Sounds he utter’d were the Notes of nine several Birds: In the Morning he was found playing with nine Doves in the Bed: The Sybil, who attended him, us’d to be seiz’d with a poetical Fury, and utter Verses, in which she commanded Dmasagoras to build a Temple to the Muses: This he perform’d in Obedience to her Inspiration, and related all these things to the Child when he was grown up; who, in Memory of the Doves which play’d with him during his Infancy, has in his Works prefer’d this Bird to the Honour of bringing Ambrosia to Jupiter. "

One would think a Story of this Nature, so fit for Age to talk of, and Infancy to hear, were incapable of being handed down to us. But we find the Tradition again taken up to be heighten’d in one part, and carry’d forward in another. Heliodorus, who had heard of this Claim which Aegypt put in for Homer, endeavours to strengthen it by naming Thebes for the particular place of his Birth. He allows too, that a Priest was his reputed Father, but that his real Father, according to the Opinion of Aegypt, was Mercury: He says,

"That when the Priest was celebrating the Rites of his Countrey, and therefore slept with his Wife in the Temple, the God had knowledge of her, and begot Homer: That he was born with Tufts of Hair on his Thigh, as a Sign of unlawful Generation, from whence he was called Homer by the Nations through which he wander’d: That he himself was the occasion why this Story of his divine Extraction is unknown; because he neither told his Name, Race, nor Countrey, being asham’d of his Exile, to which his reputed Father drove him from among the consecrated Youths, on account of that Mark which their Priests esteem’d a Testimony of an incestuous Birth."

These are the extravagant Stories by which Men, who have not been able to express how much they admire him, transcend the Bounds of Probability to say something extraordinary. The Mind, that becomes dazled with the Sight of his Performances, loses the common Idea of a Man in the fansy’d Splendor of Perfection: It sees nothing less than a God worthy to be his Father, nothing less than a Prophetess deserving to be his Nurse, and, growing unwilling that he should be spoken of in a Language beneath its Imaginations, delivers Fables in the place of History.

But whatever has thus been offer’d to support the Claim of Aegypt, they who plead for Greece are not to be accus’d for coming short of it. Their Fansie rose with a Refinement above what we are suppos’d to have of their Masters, and frequently the Veil of Fiction is wrought fine enough to be seen through, so that it hardly hides the Meaning it is made to cover, from the first Glance of the Imagination. For a Proof of this, we may mention that Poetical Genealogy which is deliver’d for Homer’s, in the Greek Treatise of the Contention between him and Hesiod, and but little vary’d by the Relation of it in Suidas.

"The Poet Linus (say they) was born of Apollo and Thoose, the Daughter of Neptune. Pierus of Linus: Oeagrus of King Pierus and the Nymph Methone: Orpheus of Oeagrus and the Muse Calliope. From Orpheus came Othrys: from him Harmonides: from him Philoterpus: from him Euphemus: from him Epiphrades, who begot Menalops, the Father of Dius: Dius had Hesiod the Poet and Perses by Pucamede, the Daughter of Apollo. Then Perses had Maeon, on whose Daughter Crytheis, the River Meles begot Homer. "

Here we behold a wonderful Genealogy contriv’d industriously to raise our Idea to the highest, where Gods, Goddesses, Muses, Kings, and Poets link in a descent; nay, where Poets are made to depend, as it were, in Clusters upon the same Stalk beneath one another. If we consider too that Harmonides is deriv’d from Harmony, Philoterpus from love of Delight, Euphemus from beautiful Diction, Epiphrades from Intelligence, and Pucamede from Prudence; it may not be improbable, but the Inventors meant, by a Fiction of this Nature, to turn such Qualifications into Persons as were agreeable to his Character, for whom the Line was drawn: So that every thing, Divine or Great, will thus come together by the extravagant Indulgence of Fancy, while it turns itself sometimes to Admiration, and sometimes to Allegory.

After this fabulous Tree of his Pedigree, we may regularly view him in one Passage concerning his Birth, which, though it differs in a Circumstance from what has been here deliver’d, yet carries on the same Air, and regards the same Traditions. There is a short Life of Homer attributed to Plutarch, wherein a third part of Aristotle on Poetry, which is now lost, is quoted for an account of his uncommon Birth, in this manner.

"At the time when Neleus, the Son of Codrus, led the Colony which was sent into Ionia, there was in the Island of Io a young Girl, compress’d by a Genius, who delighted to associate with the Muses, and share in their Consorts. She, finding

herself with Child, and being touch’d with the Shame of what had happen’d to her, remov’d from thence to a Place call’d Aegina. There she was taken in an Excursion made by Robbers, and being brought to Smyrna, which was then under the Lydians, they gave her to Maeon the King, who marry’d her upon account of her Beauty. But while she walk’d on the Bank of the River Meles, she brought forth Homer and expir’d. The Infant was taken by Maeon, and bred up as his Son, ’till the Death of that Prince."

And from this Point of the Story the Poet is let down into his traditional Poverty. Here we see, tho’ he be taken out of the Lineage of Meles where we met him before, he has still as wonderful a Rise invented for him; he is still to spring from a Demigod, one who was of a Poetical Disposition, from whom he might inherit a Soul turn’d to Poetry, and receive an Assistance of heavenly Inspiration.

In his Life the most general Tradition concerning him is his Blindness, yet there are some who will not allow even this to have happen’d after the manner in which it falls upon other Men: Chance and Sickness are excluded; nothing less than Gods and Heroes must be visibly concern’d about him. Thus we find among the different Accounts which Hermias has collected concerning his Blindness, that when Homer resolv’d to write of Achilles, he had an exceeding Desire to fill his Mind with a just Idea of so glorious a Heroe: Wherefore, having paid all due Honours at his Tomb, he intreats that he may obtain a sight of him. The Heroe grants his Poet’s Petition, and rises in a glorious Suit of Armour, which cast so unsufferable a Splendor, that Homer lost his Eyes, while he gaz’d for the Enlargement of his Notions.

If this be any thing more than a meer Fable, one would be apt to imagine it insinuated his contracting a Blindness by too intense an Application while he wrote his Iliad. But it is a very pompous way of letting us into the Knowledge of so short a Truth: It looks as if Men imagin’d the Lives of Poets should be Poetically written; that to speak plainly of them, were to speak contemptibly; or that we debase them, when they are plac’d in less glorious Company than those exalted Spirits which they themselves have been fond to celebrate. We may however in some measure be reconcil’d to this last idle Fable, for having occasion’d so beautiful an Episode in the Ambra of Politian. That which does not inform us in a History, may please us in its proper Sphere of Poetry.

II. Such Stories as these have been the Effects of a superstitious Fondness, and of our Astonishment at what we consider in a View of Perfection. But neither have all Men the same Taste, nor do they equally submit to the Superiority of others, nor bear that human Nature, which they know to be imperfect, should be prais’d in an Extream without opposition. From some Principles of this kind have arisen a second sort of Stories, which glance at Homer with malignant Suppositions, and endeavour to throw a diminishing Air over his Life, as a kind of Answer to those who sought to aggrandize him injudiciously.

Under this Head we may reckon those ungrounded Conjectures with which his Adversaries asperse the very Design and Prosecution of his Travels, when they insinuate, that they were one continued Search after Authors who had written before him, and particularly upon the same Subject, in order to destroy them, or to rob them of their Inventions.

Thus we read in Diodorus Siculus,

"That there was one Daphne, the Daughter of Tiresias, who from her Inspirations obtain’d the Title of a Sybil. She had a very extraordinary Genius, and being made Priestess at Delphos, wrote Oracles with wonderful Elegance, which Homer sought for, and adorn’d his Poems with several of her Verses."

But she is plac’d so far in the fabulous Age of the World, that nothing can be averr’d of her: And as for the Verses now ascrib’d to the Sybils, they are more modern than to be able to confirm the Story; which, as it is universally assented to, discovers that whatever there is in them in common with Homer, the Compilers have rather taken from him; perhaps to strengthen the Authority of their Work by the Protection of this Tradition.

The next Insinuation we hear is from Suidas, that Palamedes, who fought at Troy, was famous for Poetry, and wrote concerning that War in the Dorick Letter which he invented, probably much against Agamemnon and Ulysses, his mortal Enemies. Upon this Account some have fancy’d his Works were suppress’d by Agamemnon’s Posterity, or that their entire Destruction was contriv’d and effected by Homer when he undertook the same Subject. But surely the Works of so considerable a Man, when they had been able to bear up so long a time as that which pass’d between the Siege of Troy, and the flourishing of Homer, must have been too much dispers’d, for one of so mean a Condition as he is represented, to have destroy’d in every place, tho’ he had been never so much assisted by the vigilant Temper of Envy. And we may say too, that what might have been capable of raising this Principle in him, must be capable of being in some measure esteem’d, and of having at least one Line of it preserv’d to us.

After him, in the order of time, we meet with a whole Set of Names, to whom the Maligners of Homer would have him oblig’d, without being able to prove their Assertion. Suidas mentions Corinnus Iliensis, the Secretary of Palamedes, who writ a Poem upon the same Subject, but no one is produc’d as having seen it. Tzetzes mentions (and from Johannes Melala only) Sisyphus the Coan, Secretary of Teucer, but it is not so much as known if he writ Verse or Prose. Besides these, are Dictys the Cretan, Secretary to Idomeneus, and Dares the Phrygian an Attendant of Hector, who have spurious Treatises passing under their Names. From each of these is Homer said to have borrow’d his whole Argument; so inconsistent are these Stories with one another.

The next Names we find, are Demodocus, whom Homer might have met at Corcyra, and Phemius, whom he might have met at Ithaca: the one (as Plutarch says) having according to Tradition written the War at Troy, the other the Return of the Grecian Captains. But these are only two Names of Friends, which he is pleas’d to honour with Eternity in his Poem, or two different Pictures of himself, as Author of the Iliad and Odysses, or entirely the Children of his Imagination, without any particular Allusion. So that his Usage here, puts me in mind of his own Vulcan in the Iliad: The God had cast two Statues which he endued with the Power of Motion; and it is said presently after, that he is scarce able to go unless they support him.

It is reported by some, says Ptolomaeus Ephestio,

"That there was before Homer, a Woman of Memphis, call’d Phantasia, who writ of the Wars of Troy, and the Wandrings of Ulysses. Now Homer arriving at Memphis where she had laid up her Works, and getting acquainted with Phanitas, whose Business it was to copy the sacred Writings, he obtain’d a sight of these, and follow’d entirely the Scheme she had drawn."

But this is a wild Story, which speaks of an Aegyptian Woman with a Greek Name, and who never was heard of but upon this account. It appears indeed from his Knowledge of the Aegyptian Learning, that he was initiated into their Mysteries, and for ought we know by one Phanitas. But if we consider what the Name of the Woman signifies, it seems only as if from being us’d in a figurative Expression, it had been mistaken afterwards for a proper Name. And then the Meaning will be, that having gather’d as much Information concerning the Grecian and Trojan Story, as he could be furnish’d with from the Accounts of Aegypt, which were generally mix’d with Fancy and Fable, he wrought out his Plans of the Iliad and the Odysses. We pass all these Stories, together with the little Iliad of Siagrus, mention’d by Aelian. But one cannot leave this Subject without reflecting on the depreciating Humour, and odd Industry of Man, which shews itself in raising such a Number of Insinuations that clash with each other, and in spiriting up such a Crowd of unwarranted Names to support them. Nor can we but admire at the contradictory Nature of this Proceeding, that Names of Works, which either never were in Being, or never worthy to live, should be produc’d, only to persuade us that the most lasting and beautiful Poem of the Ancients was taken out of them. A Beggar might be content to patch up a Garment with such Shreds as the World throws away, but it is never to be imagin’d an Emperor would make his Robes of them.

After Homer had spent a considerable time in Travel, we find him towards his Age introduc’d to such an Action as tends to his Disparagement. It is not enough to accuse him for spoiling the dead, they raise a living Author by whom he must be baffled in that Qualification on which his Fame is founded.

There is in Hesiod an Account of an ancient Poetical Contention at the Funeral of Amphidamas, in which, he says, he obtain’d the Prize, but does not mention from whom he carry’d it. There is also among the Hymns ascribed to Homer, a Prayer to Venus, for Success in a Poetical Dispute, but it neither mentions where, nor against whom. But though they have neglected to name their Antagonists, others have since taken care to fill up the Stories by putting them together. The making two such considerable Names in Poetry engage, carries an amusing Pomp in it, like making two Heroes of the first Rank enter the Lists of Combat. And if Homer and Hesiod had their Parties among the Grammarians, here was an excellent Opportunity for Hesiod’s Favourers to make a Sacrifice of Homer. Hence might a bare Conjecture spread into a Tradition, then the Tradition give occasion to an Epigram, which is yet extant, and again the Epigram (for want of knowing the Time it was writ in) be alledg’d as a Proof of that Conjecture from whence it sprung. After this, a whole Treatise was written upon it, which appears not very ancient, because it mentions Adrian: The Story agrees in the main with the short Account we find in Plutarch,

"That Ganictor, the Son of Amphidamas, King of Euboea, being us’d to celebrate his Father’s funeral Games, invited from all Parts Men famous for Strength and Wisdom. Among these Homer and Hesiod arriv’d at Chalcis. The King Panidas presided over the Contest, which being finish’d, he decreed the Tripos to Hesiod, with this Elogy in the Sentence, That the Poet of Peace and Husbandry better deserv’d to be crown’d, than he who stirs us up to War and Contention.

Whereupon Hesiod dedicated the Prize to the Muses, with this Inscription, " [Greek]" [Greek]"

Which are two Lines taken from that Place in Hesiod where he mentions no Antagonist, and alter’d, that the two Names might be brought in, as is evident by comparing them with these,

[Greek]

To answer this Story, we take notice that Hesiod is generally plac’d after Homer. Graevius, his own Commentator, sets him a hundred Years lower; and whether he were so or no, yet Plutarch has slightly pass’d the whole Account as a Fable. Nay, we may draw an Argument against it from Hesiod himself: He had a Love of Fame which caus’d him to engage at the Funeral Games, and which went so far as to make him record his Conquest in his own Works; Had he defeated Homer, the same Principle would have made him mention a Name that could have secur’d his own to Immortality. A Poet who records his Glory, would not omit the noblest Circumstance, and Homer, like a Captive Prince, had certainly grac’d the Triumph of his Adversary.

Towards the latter end of his Life, there is another Story invented, which makes him conclude it in a manner altogether beneath the Greatness of a Genius. We find in the Life said to be written by Plutarch, a Tradition,

"That he was warn’d by an Oracle to beware of the young Mens Riddle. This remain’d long obscure to him, ’til he arriv’d at the Island Io. There as he sat to behold the Fishermen, they propos’d to him a Riddle in Verse, which he being unable to answer, dy’d for Grief."

This Story refutes itself by carrying Superstition at one end, and Folly at the other. It seems conceiv’d with an Air of Derision to lay a great Man in the Dust after a foolish Manner. The same sort of Hand might have fram’d that Tale of Aristotle’s drowning himself because he could not account for the Euripus: The Design is the same, the Turn the same; and all the difference, that the great Men are each to suffer in his Character, the one by a Poetical Riddle, the other by a Philosophical Problem. But these are Actions which can only proceed from the Meanness of Pride, or Extravagance of Madness: A Soul enlarg’d with Knowledge (so vastly as was that of Homer ) better knows the proper Stress which is to be laid upon every Incident, and the Proportion of Concern, or Carelesness, with which it ought to be affected. But it is the Fate of narrow Capacities to measure Mankind by a false Standard, and imagine the Great, like themselves, capable of being disconcerted by little Occasions; to frame their malignant Fables according to this Imagination, and to stand detected by it as by an evident Mark of Ignorance.

III. The third Manner in which the Life of Homer has been written, is but a heaping of all the Traditions and Hints which the Writers could meet with, great or little, in order to tell a Story of him to the World. Perhaps the want of choice Materials might put them upon the Necessity; or perhaps an injudicious Desire of saying all they could, occasion’d the fault. However it be, a Life compos’d of trivial Circumstances, which (tho’ it give a true account of several Passages) has but little of that Appearance in which a Man was most famous, and hardly any thing correspondent to the Idea we entertain of him: Such a Life, I say, will never answer rightly the demand the World has upon an Historian. Yet the most formal Account we have of Homer is of this Nature, I mean that which is said to be collected by Herodotus. It is, in short, an unsupported minute Treatise, compos’d of Events which lie within the Compass of Probability, and belong to the lowest Sphere of Life. It seems through all its Frame to be entirely conducted by the Spirit of a Grammarian, ever abounding with extempore Verses, as if it were to prove a thing so unquestionable as our Author’s Title to Rapture; and at the same time the Occasions are so poorly invented, that they misbecome the Warmth of a Poetical Imagination. There is nothing in it above the Life which a Grammarian might lead himself; nay, it is but such an one as they commonly do lead, the highest Stage of which is to be Master of a School. But because this is a Treatise to which Writers have had recourse for want of a better, I shall give the following Abstract.

Homer was born at Smyrna, about one hundred sixty eight Years after the Siege of Troy, and six hundred twenty two Years before the Expedition of Xerxes. His Mother’s Name was Crytheis, who proving unlawfully with Child, was sent away from Cumae by her Uncle, with Ismenias, one of those who led the Colony to Smyrna then building. A while after, as she was celebrating a Festival with other Women on the Banks of the River Meles, she was deliver’d of Homer, whom she therefore nam’d Melesigenes. Upon this she left Ismenias, and supported herself by Working, ’til Phemius (who taught a School in Smyrna ) fell in love with her, and marry’d her. But both dying in process of Time, the School fell to Homer, who manag’d it with such Wisdom, that he was universally admir’d both by Natives and Strangers. Amongst these latter was Mentes, a Master of a Ship from Leucadia, by whose Persuasions and Promises he gave up his School, and went to travel: With him he visited Spain and Italy, but was left behind at Ithaca upon account of a Defluxion in his Eyes. During his Stay he was entertain’d by one Mentor, a Man of Fortune, Justice, and Hospitality, and learn’d the principal Incidents of Ulysses’s Life. But at the Return of Mentes, he went from thence to Colophon, where, his Defluxion renewing, he fell entirely blind. Upon this he could think of no better Expedient than to go back to Smyrna, where perhaps he might be supported by those who knew him, and have the leisure to addict himself to Poetry. But there he found his Poverty encrease, and his hopes of Encouragement fail; so that he remov’d for Cumae, and by the way was entertain’d for some time at the House of one Tychius a Leather-Dresser. At Cumae his Poems were wonderfully admir’d, but when he propos’d to eternize their Town if they would allow him a Sallary, he was answer’d, That there would be no end of maintaining all the [Greek], or blind Men, and hence he got the Name of Homer. From Cumae he went to Phocaea, where one Thestorides (a School-master also) offer’d to maintain him if he would suffer him to transcribe his Verses: This Homer complying with for meer Necessity, the other had no sooner gotten them, but he remov’d to Chois; There the Poems gain’d him Wealth and Honour, while the Author himself hardly earn’d his Bread by repeating them. At last, some who came from Chios having told the People that the same Verses were publish’d there by a School-master, Homer resolv’d to find him out. Having therefore landed near that Place, he was receiv’d by one Glaucus a Shepherd (at whose Door he had like to have been worried by Dogs) and carry’d by him to his Master at Bollissus, who admiring his Knowledge, entrusted him with the Education of his Children. Here his Praise began to spread, and Thestorides, who heard of his Neighbourhood, fled before him. He remov’d however some time afterwards to Chois, where he set up a School of Poetry, gain’d a competent Fortune, marry’d a Wife, and had two Daughters, the one of which dy’d young, the other was marry’d to his Patron at Bollissus. Here he inserted in his Poems the Names of those to whom he had been most oblig’d, as, Mentes, Phemius, Mentor, and Tychius: and resolving for Athens, he made honourable mention of that City, to prepare the Athenians for a kind Reception. But as he went, the Ship put in at Samos, where he continu’d the whole Winter, singing at the Houses of great Men, with a Train of Boys after him. In Spring he went on board again in order to prosecute his Journey to Athens, but landing by the way at Ios, he fell sick, dy’d, and was bury’d on the Sea-Shore.

This is the Life of Homer ascrib’d to Herodotus, tho’ it is wonderful it should be so, since it evidently contradicts his own History, by placing Homer six hundred twenty two Years before the Expedition of Xerxes; whereas Herodotus himself, who was alive at the time of that Expedition, says Homer was only four hundred Years before him. However, if we can imagin that there may be any thing of Truth in the main Parts of this Treatise, we may gather these general Observations from it: That he shew’d a great Thirst of Knowledge, by undertaking such long and numerous Travels; That he manifested an unexampled Vigor of Mind, by being able to write with more Fire under the Disadvantages of Blindness, and the utmost Poverty, than any Poet after him in better Circumstances; And that he had an unlimited Sense of Fame (the Attendant of noble Spirits) which prompted him to engage in new Travels, both under these Disadvantages, and the additional Burthen of old Age.

But it will not perhaps be either improper or difficult to make some Conjectures, which seem to lay open the Foundation from whence the Traditions which frame the low Lives of Homer have arisen. In the first place we may consider, That there are no Historians of his Time (or none handed down to us) who have mention’d him; and that he has never spoken plainly of himself, in those Works which have been ascrib’d to him without Controversy. However, an eager Desire to know something concerning him has occasion’d Mankind to labour the Point under these Disadvantages, and turn on all Hands to see if there were any thing left which might have the least Appearance of Information. Upon the Search, they find no Remains but his Name and Works, and resolve to torture these upon the Rack of Invention, in order to give some account of the Person they belong to.

The first Thing therefore they settle is, That what pass’d for his Name, must be his Name no longer, but an additional Title us’d instead of it. The reason why it was given, must be some Accident of his Life. Having thus found an end of the Clue, they proceed to consider every thing that the word may imply by its Derivation. One finds that [Greek]signifies a Thigh; whence arises the Tradition in Heliodorus, that he was banish’d Aegypt for the Mark on that Part, which shew’d a spurious Birth; and this they imagine ground enough to give him the Life of a Wanderer. A second finds that [Greek]signifies an Hostage, and then he must be deliver’d as such in a War (according to Proclus ) between Smyrna and Chios. A third can derive the Name [Greek], non videns, from whence he must be a blind Man (as in the Piece ascrib’d to Herodotus. ) A fourth brings him from [Greek], speaking in Council; and then (as it is in Suidas ) he must, by a divine Inspiration, declare to the Smyrnaeans, that they should war against Colophon. A fifth finds the word may be brought to signify following others, or joining himself to them, and then he must be call’d Homer for saying (as it is quoted from Aristotle in the Life ascrib’d to Plutarch ) that he would [Greek], or follow the Lydians from Smyrna. Thus has the Name been turn’d and winded enough at least to give a Suspicion, that he who got a new Etymology, got a handle either for a new Life of him, or something which he added to the old one.

However, the Name itself not affording enough to furnish out a whole Life, his Works must be brought in for Assistance, and it is taken for granted, That where he has not spoken of himself, he lies veil’d beneath the Persons or Actions of those whom he describes. Because he calls a Poet by the Name of Phemius in his Odysses, they conclude this Phemius was his Master. Because he speaks of Demodocus as another Poet who was blind, and frequented Palaces, he must be sent about blind, to sing at the Doors of rich Men. If Ulysses be set upon by Dogs at his Shepherd’s Cottage, because this is a low Adventure, it is thought to be his own at Bollissus. And if he calls the Leather-dresser, who made Ajax’s Shield, by the Name of Tychius, he has been supported by such an one in his Wants: Nay, some have been so violently carry’d into this way of conjecturing, that the bare Simile of a Woman who works hard for her Livelihood, is said to have been borrow’d from his Mother’s Condition, and brought as a Proof of it. Thus he is still imagin’d to intend himself; and the Fictions of Poetry, converted into real Facts, are deliver’d for his Life, who has assign’d them to others. All those Stories in his Works which suit with a mean Condition are suppos’d to have happen’d to him, tho’ the same way of Inference might as well prove him to have acted in a higher Sphere, from the many Passages that shew his Skill in Government, and his Knowledge of the great Parts of Life.

There are some other scatter’d Stories of Homer which fall not under these Heads, but are however of as trifling a Nature; as much unfit for the Materials of History, still more ungrounded, if possible, and arising merely from Chance, or the Humours of Men: Such is the Report we meet with from Heraclides, That

" Homer was fin’d at Athens for a Madman;"

which seems invented by the Disciples of Socrates to cast an Odium upon the Athenians for their consenting to the Death of their Master, and carries in it something like a declaiming Revenge of the Schools, as if the World should imagine the one could be esteem’d mad, where the other was put to Death for being wicked. Such another Report is that in e 1.31 Aelian, That

" Homer portion’d his Daughter with some of his Works for want of Money;"

which looks but like a Whim deliver’d in the Gaiety of Fancy; a Jest upon a poor Wit, which at first might have had an Epigrammatist for its Father, and been afterwards gravely understood by some painful Collector. In short, Mankind have labour’d heartily about him to no purpose; they have caught up every thing greedily, with that busy minute Curiosity and unsatisfactory Inquisitiveness which Seneca calls the Disease of the Greeks; they have puzzled the Cause by their Attempts to find it out; and, like Travellers entirely destitute of a Road, yet resolv’d to make it over unpassable Deserts, they superinduce Error, instead of removing Ignorance.

IV. Whenever Men have set themselves to write a Life of Homer, clear from Superstition, Envy, and Trifling, they have grown asham’d of all these Traditions. This, however, has not occasion’d every one to desist from the Undertaking; but still the Difficulty which could not make them desist, has necessitated them, either to deliver the old Story with Excuses; or else, instead of a Life, to compose a Treatise partly of Criticism, and partly of Character; rather descriptive, than supported by Action, and the Air of History.

They begin with letting us know, that the Time in which he liv’d has never been fix’d beyond dispute, and that the Opinions of Authors are various concerning it: But the Controversy, in its several Conjectures, includes a Space of Years between the earliest and latest, from twenty four to about five hundred after the Siege of Troy. Whenever the Time was, it seems not to have been near that Siege, from his own Invocation of the Muses to recount the Catalogue of the Ships:

"For

we, says he, have only heard a Rumour, and know nothing particularly."

It is remark’d by g 1.35 Velleius Paterculus, That it must have been considerably later, from his own Confession, that Mankind was but half as strong in his Age, as in that he writ of; which, as it is founded upon a Notion of a gradual Degeneracy in our Nature, discovers the Interval to have been long between Homer and his Subject. But not to trouble our selves with entring into all the dry Dispute, we may here take notice, that the World is inclin’d to stand by the h 1.36 Arundelian Marble, as the most certain Computation of those early Times; and this, by placing him at the time when Diognetus rul’d in Athens, makes him flourish a little before the Olympiads were establish’d; about three hundred Years after the taking of Troy, and near a thousand before the Christian Aera. For a farther Confirmation of this, we have some great Names of Antiquity, who give him a Cotemporary agreeing with the Computation. i 1.37 Cicero says, There was a Tradition that Homer liv’d about the time of Lycurgus. k 1.38 Strabo tells us, It was reported that Lycurgus went to Chios for an Interview with him. And even l 1.39 Plutarch, when he says, Lycurgus receiv’d Homer’s Works from the Grandson of that Creophilus with whom he had liv’d, does not put him so far backward, but that possibly they might have been alive together.

The next Dispute regards his Country, concerning which, Adrian enquir’d of the Gods, as a Question not to be settled by Men; and Appion (according to Pliny ) rais’d a Spirit for his Information. That which has encreas’d the difficulty, is the Number of contesting Places, of which Suidas has reckon’d up nineteen in one Breath. But his ancient Commentator, Didymus, found the Subject so fertile, as to employ a great Part of his four thousand Volumes upon it. There is a Prophecy of the Sybils that he should be born at Salamis in Cyprus; and then to play an Argument of the same Nature against it, there is the Oracle given to Adrian afterwards, that says he was born in Ithaca. There are Customs of Aeolia and Aegypt cited from his Works, to make out by turns, and with the same Probability, that he belong’d to each of them. There was a School shew’d for his at Colophon, and a Tomb at Io, both of equal Strength to prove he had his Birth in either. As for the Athenians, they challeng’d him as born where they had a Colony; or else in behalf of Greece in general, and as the Metropolis of its Learning, they made his Name free of their City, ( qu. Liciniâ & Mutiâ lege, says Politian ) after the manner of that Law by which all Italy became free of Rome. All these have their Authors to record their Titles, but still the Weight of the Question seems to lie between Smyrna and Chios, which we must therefore take a little more notice of. That Homer then was born at Smyrna is endeavour’d to be prov’d by an Epigram, recorded to have been under the Statue of Pisistratus at Athens; by the Reports mention’d in Cicero, Strabo, and A. Gellius; and by the Greek Lives, which are prefix’d to him with the Names of Herodotus, Plutarch, and Proclus; as also the two that are anonymous. For this the Smyrnaeans built him a Temple, cast Medals of him, and grew so possest of his having been theirs, that it is said they burn’d Zoilus for affronting them in the Person of Homer. On the other hand, the Chians plead the ancient Authorities of Simonides and Theocritus for his being born among them. They mention a Race they had, call’d the Homeridae, whom they reckon’d his Posterity; they cast Medals of him; they shew to this Day an Homaerium, or Temple of Homer, near Bollissus; and close their Arguments with a Quotation from the Hymn to Apollo (which is acknowledg’d for Homer’s by Thucydides ) where he calls himself,

"The blind Man that inhabits Chios. "

The Reader has here the Sum of the large Treatise of Leo Allatius, written particularly on this Subject , in which, after having separately weigh’d the Pretensions of all, he concludes for Chios. For my part, I determine nothing in a Point of so much Uncertainty; neither which of these was honour’d with his Birth, nor whether any of them was, nor, again, whether each may not have produc’d his own Homer; since Xenophon says, there were many of the Name. But one cannot avoid being surpriz’d at the prodigious Veneration of his Character, which could engage Mankind with such Eagerness in a Point so little essential; that Kings should send to Oracles for the Enquiry of his Birth-place; that Cities should be in Strife about it, and whole Lives of learned Men employ’d upon it; that some should write Treatises concerning it; that others should call up Spirits unavailingly; that thus, in short, Heaven, Earth and Hell should be sought to, for the Decision of a Question which terminates in Curiosity only.

If we endeavour to find the Parents of Homer, we immediately perceive the Search is fruitless. Ephorus has made Maeon to be his Father, by a Niece whom he deflour’d; and this has so far obtain’d, as to give him the derivative Name of Maeonides. His Mother (if we allow the Story of Maeon ) is call’d Crytheis: But we are lost again in Uncertainty if we search farther; for Suidas has mention’d Eumetis or Polycaste; and Pausanias, Clymene or Themisto; which happens, because the contesting Countrys find out Mothers of their own for him. Tradition has in this case afforded us no more Light, than what may serve to shew its Shadows in a Confusion; they strike the Sight with so equal a Probability, that we are in doubt which to chuse, and must pass the Question undecided.

If we enquire concerning his own Name, even that is doubted of. He has been call’d Melesigenes from the River where he was born. Homer has been reckon’d an ascititious Name, from some Accident in his Life: The Certamen Homericum calls him once Auletes, perhaps from his musical Genius; and Lucian, Tigranes; it may be from a Confusion with that Tigranes or Tigretes, who was Brother of Queen Artemisia, and whose Name has been so far mingled with his, as to make him be esteem’d Author of some of the lesser Works which are ascrib’d to Homer. It may not be amiss to close these Criticisms with that agreeable Derision wherewith Lucian treats the over-busy Humour of Grammarians in their Search after minute and impossible Enquiries, when he feigns, that he had talk’d over the Point with Homer in the Island of the Blessed.

"I ask’d him, says he, of what Country he was? a Question hard to be resolv’d with Us: to which he answer’d, He could not certainly tell, because some had inform’d him, that he was of Chios, some of Smyrna, and others of Colophon; but he took himself for a Babylonian; called Tigranes, while he liv’d among his Country-men, and Homer, while he was an Hostage among the Graecians. "

At his Birth he appears not to have been blind, whatever he might be afterwards. The Chian Medal of him (which is of great Antiquity, according to Leo Allatius ) seats him with a Volume open, and reading intently: But there is no need of Proofs from Antiquity for that which every Line of his Works will demonstrate. With what an Exactness, agreeable to the natural Appearance of Things, do his Cities stand, his Mountains rise, his Rivers wind, and his Regions lie extended? How beautifully are the Surfaces of all things drawn in their Figures, and adorn’d with their Paintings? What Address in Action, what visible Characters of the Passions inspirit his Heroes? It is not to be imagin’d, that a Man could have been always blind, who thus inimitably copies Nature, who gives every where the proper Proportion, Figure, Colour, and Life:

" Quem si quis caecum genitum putat (says Paterculus ) omnibus sensibus orbus est: "

He must certainly have beheld the Creation, consider’d it with a long Attention, and enrich’d his Fancy by the most sensible Knowledge of those Ideas which he makes the Reader see while he but describes them.

As he grew forward in Years, he was train’d up to Learning (if we credit Diodorus ) under one

" Pronapides, a Man of excellent natural Endowments, who taught the Pelasgick Letter invented by Linus. "

From him might he learn to preserve his Poetry by committing it to Writing; which we mention, because it is generally believ’d no Poems before his were so preserv’d; and he himself in the third Line of his Batrochomuomachia (if that Piece be allow’d to be his) expressly speaks of writing his Works in his Tablets. When he was of riper Years, for his farther Accomplishment, and the Gratification of his Thirst of Knowledge, he spent a considerable part of his time in travelling. Upon which account, Proclus has taken notice that he must have abounded in Riches:

"For long Travels, says he, occasion high Expences, and especially at those times when Men could neither sail without imminent Danger and Inconveniences, nor had a regulated manner of Commerce with one another."

This way of reasoning appears very probable; and if it does not prove him to have been rich, it shews him, at least, to have had Patrons of a generous Spirit, who, observing the Vastness of his Capacity, believ’d themselves beneficent to Mankind, while they supported one who seem’d born for something extraordinary.

Aegypt being at that time the Seat of Learning, the greatest Wits and Genius’s of Greece us’d to travel thither. Among these Diodorus reckons Homer, and to strengthen his Opinion, alledges that Multitude of their Notions which he has receiv’d into his Poetry, and of their Customs, to which he alludes in his Fictions: Such as his Gods, which are nam’d from the first Aegyptian Kings; the Number of the Muses taken from the nine Minstrels which attended Osyris; the Feast wherein they us’d to send their Statues of the Deities into Aethiopia, and to return after twelve Days; and the carrying their dead Bodies over the Lake to a pleasant Place call’d Acherusia near Memphis, from whence arose the Stories of Charon, Styx, and Elysium. These are Notions which so abound in him, as to make Herodotus say, He had introduc’d from thence the Religion of Greece. And if others have believ’d he was an Aegyptian, from his Knowledge of their Rites and Traditions which were reveal’d but to few; and of the Arts and Customs which were practis’d among them in general; it may prove at least thus much, that he was there in his Travels.

As Greece was in all Probability his native Country, and had then began to make an Effort for Learning, we cannot doubt but he travel’d there also, with a particular Observation. He uses the different Dialects which were spoken in its different Parts, as one who had been conversant with them all. But the Argument which appears most irrefragable, is to be taken from his Catalogue of the Ships: He has there given us an exact Geography of Greece; where its Cities, Mountains, and Plains, are particularly mention’d; where the Courses of its Rivers are trac’d out; where the Countrys are laid in order, their Bounds assign’d, and the uses of their Soils specify’d; which the Ancients, who compar’d it with the Original, have allow’d to be so true in all Points, that it could never have been owing to a loose and casual Information. Even Strabo’s Account of Greece is but a kind of Commentary upon Homer’s.

We may carry this Argument farther, to suppose his having been round Asia Minor, from his exact Division of the Regnum Priami vetus (as Horace calls it) into its separate Dynasties, and the Account he gives of the bordering Nations in Alliance with it. Perhaps too, in the Wandrings of Ulysses about Sicily, whose Ports and neighbouring Islands are mention’d, he might contrive to send his Heroe where he had made his own Voyage before. Nor will the Fables he has intermingled be any Objection to his having travel’d in those Parts, since they are not related as the History of the present time, but the Tradition of the former. His mention of Thrace, his Description of the Beasts of Lybia, and of the Climate in the Fortunate Islands, may seem also to give us a view of him in the Extreams of the Earth, where it was not barbarous or uninhabited. It is hard to set limits to the Travels of a Man, who has set none to that desire of Knowledge which made him undertake them. Who can say what People he has not seen, who appears to be vers’d in the Customs of all? He takes the Globe for the Scene in which he introduces his Subjects; he launches forward intrepidly, like one to whom no place is new, and appears a Citizen of the World in general.

When he return’d from his Travels, he seems to have apply’d himself to the finishing his Poems, however he might have either design’d, begun, or pursu’d them before. In these he has treasur’d up his various Acquisitions of Knowledge, where they have been preserv’d through Ages, to be as well the Proofs of his own Industry, as the Instructions of Posterity. He might then describe his Sacrifices after the Aeolian manner; or his Leagues with a Mixture of Trojan and Spartan Ceremonies: He could then compare the Confusion of a Multitude to that Tumult he had observ’d in the Icarian Sea, dashing and breaking among its Crowd of Islands: He could represent the Numbers of an Army, by those Flocks of Swans he had seen on the Banks of the Cayster; or being to describe that Heat of Battel with which Achilles drove the Trojans into the River, he could illustrate it with an Allusion from Cyrene or Cyprus, where, when the Inhabitants burn’d their Fields, the Grass-hoppers fled before the Fire to perish in the Ocean. His Fancy being fully replenish’d, might supply him with every proper occasional Image, and his Soul after having enlarg’d itself, and taken in an extensive Variety of the Creation, might be equal to the Task of an Iliad and an Odysses. In his Age, we hear he fell blind, and settled at Chios, as he says in the Hymn to Apollo, which (as is before observ’d) is acknowledg’d for his by Thucydides, and might occasion both Simonides and Theocritus to call him a Chian. Strabo relates, That Lycurgus, the great Legislator of Sparta, was reported to have gone to Chios to have a Conference with Homer, after he had study’d the Laws of Crete and Aegypt in order to form his Constitutions. If this be true, how much a nobler Representation does it give of him, and indeed more agreeable to what we conceive of this mighty Genius, than those spurious Accounts which keep him down among the meanest of Mankind? What an Idea could we frame to our selves of a Conversation, held between two Persons so considerable; a Philosopher conscious of the Force of Poetry, and a Poet knowing in the Depths of Philosophy; both their Souls improv’d with Learning, both eminently rais’d above little Designs, or the meaner kind of Interest, and meeting together to consult the Good of Mankind? But in this, I have only indulg’d a Thought which is not to be insisted upon; the Evidence of History rather tends to prove that Lycurgus brought his Works from Asia after his Death: which Proclus imagines to have happen’d at a great old Age, on account of his Circumference of Learning, for which a short Life could never suffice.

If we would now make a Conjecture concerning the Genius and Temper of this great Man; perhaps his Works, which would not furnish us with Facts for his Life, will be more reasonably made use of to give us a Picture of his Mind: To this end therefore, we may suffer the very Name and Notion of a Book to vanish for a while, and look upon what is left us as a Conversation, in order to gain an Acquaintance with Homer. Perhaps the general Air of his Works will become the general Character of his Genius, and the particular Observations give some Light to the particular Turns of his Temper. His comprehensive Knowledge shews that his Soul was not form’d like a narrow Chanel for a single Stream, but as an Expanse which might receive an Ocean into its Bosom; that he had the strongest Desire of Improvement, and an unbounded Curiosity, which made its Advantage of every transient Circumstance, or obvious Accident. His solid and sententious Manner may make us admire him for a Man of Judgment; one who, in the darkest Ages, could enter far into a Disquisition of human Nature; who, notwithstanding all the Changes which Governments, Manners, Rites, and even the Notions of Virtue have undergone, could still abound with so many Maxims correspondent to Truth, and Notions applicable to so many Sciences. The Fire, which is so observable in his Poem, as to give every thing the most active Appearance, may make us naturally conjecture him to have been of a warm Temper, and lively Behaviour; and the pleasurable Air which every where overspreads it, may give us reason to think, that Fire of Imagination was temper’d with Sweetness and Affability. If we farther observe the Particulars he treats of, and imagine that he laid a Stress upon the Sentiments he delivers, pursuant to his real Opinions; we shall take him to be of a religious Spirit, by his inculcating in almost every Page the worship of the Gods. We shall imagine him to be a generous Lover of his Countrey, from his care to extol it every where: which is carry’d to such a heighth, as to make Plutarch observe, That though many of the Barbarians are made Prisoners or Suppliants, yet neither of these disgraceful Accidents (which are common to all Nations in War) ever happens to one Greek throughout his Works. We shall take him to be a compassionate Lover of Mankind, from his numberless Praises of Hospitality and Charity; (if indeed we are not to account for ’em, as the common Writers of his Life imagine, from his owing his Support to these Virtues.) It might seem from his Love of Stories, with his manner of telling them sometimes, that he gave his own Picture when he painted his Nestor, and, as wise as he was, was no Enemy to Talking. One would think from his Praises of Wine, his copious Goblets, and pleasing Descriptions of Banquets, that he was addicted to a chearful, sociable Life, which Horace takes notice of as a kind of Tradition;

"Laudibus arguitur vini vinosus Homerus. " Ep. 19. l. 1.

And that he was not (as may be guess’d of Virgil from his Works) averse to the Female Sex, will appear from his care to paint them amiably upon all occasions: His Andromache and Penelope are in each of his Poems most shining Characters of conjugal Affection; even his Helena herself is drawn with all the Softnings imaginable; his Souldiers are exhorted to combat with the hopes of Women; his Commanders are furnish’d with fair Slaves in their Tents, nor is the venerable Nestor without a Mistress. It is true, that in this way of turning a Book into a Man, this reasoning from his Works to himself, we can at best but hit off a few Out-strokes of a Character: Wherefore I shall decline the carrying it into more minute Points, and conclude with one Discovery which we may make from his Silence, a Discovery extreamly proper to be made in this manner, which is, that he was of a very modest Temper. There is in all other Poets a Custom of speaking of themselves, and a Vanity of promising Eternity to their Writings: In both which Homer, who has the best Title to speak out, is altogether silent. As to the last of them, the World has made him ample Recompence; it has given him that Eternity he would not promise himself: But whatever Endeavours have been offer’d in respect of the former, we find our selves still under an irreparable Loss. That which others have said of him has amounted to no more than Conjecture; that which I have said is no farther to be insisted on: I have us’d the liberty which is indulg’d me by Precedent, to give in my Opinions among the Accounts of others, and the World may be pleas’d to receive them as so many willing Endeavours to gratify its Curiosity.

The only uncontestable Works which Homer has left behind him are the Iliad and Odysses: The Batrachomuomachia or Battle of the Frogs and Mice, has been disputed, but is however allow’d for his by many great Authorities; amongst whom Statius has reckon’d it like the Culex of Virgil, a Trial of his Force before his larger Performances. It is indeed a beautiful Piece of Raillery, in which a great Writer may delight to unbend himself; an Instance of that agreeable Trifling, which has been at some time or other indulg’d by the finest Genius’s, and the Offspring of that amusing and chearful Humour, which generally accompanies the Character of a rich Imagination, like a Vein of Mercury running mingled with a Mine of Gold. The Hymns have been doubted also, and attributed by the Scholiasts to Cynaethus the Rhapsodist; but notwithstanding the Tradition, neither Thucydides, Lucian, nor Pausanias, have scrupled to cite them as genuine. We have the Authority of the two former for that to Apollo, tho’ it be observ’d that the word [Greek]is found in it, which the Book de Poesi Homericâ (ascrib’d to Plutarch ) tells us, was not in use in Homer’s Time. We have also an Authority of the last for a Hymn to Ceres, of which he has given us a Fragment. That to Mars is objected against for mentioning [Greek], and that which is the first to Minerva for using [Greek], both of them being (according to the Author of the Treatise before mention’d) words of a later Invention. The Hymn to Venus has many of its Lines copy’d by Virgil in the Enterview between Aeneas, and that Goddess in the first Aeneid: But whether these Hymns are Homer’s or not, they are always judg’d to be near as ancient, if not of the same Age with him.

The Epigrams are extracted out of the Life said to be written by Herodotus, and we leave them as such to stand or fall with it; except the Epitaph on Midas, which is of very ancient Authority, quoted without its Author both by Plato and Longinus, and (according to Laertius ) ascrib’d by Simonides to Cleobulus the wise Man; who living long after Homer answers better to the Age of Midas the Son of Gordias. The Margites, which is lost, is said by Aristotle to have been a Poem of a comick Nature, wherein Homer made use of Iambick Verses as proper for Raillery. It was a Jest upon the Fair Sex, and had its Name from one Margites, a weak Man who was the Subject of it. The Story is something loose, as may be seen by the Account of it still preserv’d in Eustathius’s Comment on the Odysses. The Cercopes was a Satyrical Work which is also lost; we may however imagine it was level’d against the Vices of Men, if our Conjecture be right that it was founded upon the old Fable of the Cercopes, a Nation who were turn’d into Monkies for their Frauds and Impostures.

The Destruction of Oechalia, was a Poem of which (according to Eustathius ) Hercules was the Heroe; and the Subject, his ravaging that Countrey; because Eurytus the King had deny’d him his Daughter Iole. The Ilias Minor was a Piece which included both the taking of Troy, and the return of the Graecians; In this was the Story of Sinon, which Virgil has made use of: Aristotle has judg’d it not to belong to Homer. The Cypriacks, if it was upon them that Nevius founded his Ilias Cypria, (as Mr. Dacier conjectures) were the Love-Adventures of the Ladies at the Siege: these are rejected by Herodotus, for saying that Paris brought Helen to Troy in three Days; whereas Homer asserts they were long driven from Place to Place.

There are also other Things ascrib’d to him, such as the Heptapection Goat, the Arachnomachia, &c. in the ludicrous Manner; and the Thebais, Epigoni, or second Siege of Thebes, the Phocais, Amazonia, &c. in the serious: which, if they were his, are now to be reputed a real Loss to the learned World. Time, in some Things, may have prevail’d over Homer himself, and left only the Names of these Works as Memorials that such were in being; but while the Iliad and Odysses remain, he seems like a Leader, who, tho’ he may have fail’d in a Skirmish, has carry’d a Victory, for which he passes in Triumph through all future Ages.

THE Remains we have at present of those Monuments Antiquity had fram’d for him, are but few. It could not be thought that they who knew so little of the Life of Homer, could have a right Knowledge of his Person; yet had they Statues of him as of their Gods, whose Forms they had never seen.

" Quinimò quae non sunt, finguntur (says Pliny ) pariuntque desideria non traditi vultûs, sicut in Homero evenit. "

But tho’ the ancient Portraits of him seem purely notional, yet they agree (as I think h 1.95 Fabretti has observ’d) in representing him with a short curl’d Beard, and distinct Marks of Age in his Forehead. That which is prefix’d to this Book, is taken from an ancient Marble Bust, in the Palace of Farnese at Rome. In Bollissus near Chios there is a Ruin, which was shown for the House of Homer, which Leo Allatius went on Pilgrimage to visit, and (as he tells us) found nothing but a few Stones crumbling away with Age, over which he and his Companions wept for Satisfaction.

They erected Temples to Homer in Smyrna, as appears from Cicero; one of these is suppos’d to be yet extant, and the same which they show for the Temple of Janus. It agrees with Strabo’s Description, a square Building of Stone, near a River, thought to be the Meles, with two Doors opposite to each other, North and South, and a large Niche within the East-Wall, where the Image stood: But M. Spon denies this to be the true Homaerium. Of the Medals struck for him, there are some both of Chios and Smyrna still in being, and exhibited at the beginning of this Essay. The most valuable with respect to the Largeness of the Head is that of Amastris, which is carefully copied from an Original belonging to the present Earl of Pembroke, and is the same which Gronovius Cuperus and Dacier have Copies of, but very incorrectly performed.

But that which of all the Remains has been of late the chief Amusement of the Learned, is the Marble call’d his Apotheosis, the Work of Archelaus of Priene, and now in the Palace of Colonna. We see there a Temple hung with its Veil, where Homer is plac’d on a Seat with a Footstool to it, as he has describ’d the Seats of his Gods; supported on each side with Figures known for the Iliad and the Odysses, the one by the Sword, the other by the Ornament of a Ship, which denotes the Voyages of Ulysses. On each side of his Footstool are Mice, in Allusion to the Batrachomuomachia. Behind, is Time waiting upon him, and a Figure with Turrets on its Head, which signifies the World, crowning him with the Laurel. Before him is an Altar, at which all the Arts are sacrificing to him as to their Deity. On one side of the Altar stands a Boy, representing Mythology, on the other, a Woman, representing History; after her is Poetry bringing the Sacred Fire; and in a long following Train, Tragedy, Comedy, Nature, Virtue, Memory, Rhetorick, and Wisdom, in all their proper Attitudes.

HAVING now finish’d what was propos’d concerning the History of Homer’s Life, I shall proceed to that of his Works; and considering him no longer as a Man, but as an Author, prosecute the Thread of his Story in this his second Life, thro’ the different Degrees of Esteem which those Writings have obtain’d in different Periods of Time.

It has been the fortune of several great Genius’s not to be known while they liv’d, either for want of Historians, the Meanness of Fortune, or the Love of Retirement, to which a Poetical Temper is peculiarly addicted. Yet after Death their Works give themselves a Life in Fame, without the help of an Historian; and, notwithstanding the Meanness of their Author, or his Love of Retreat, they go forth among Mankind, the Glories of that Age which produc’d them, and the Delight of those which follow it. This is a Fate particularly verify’d in Homer, than whom no considerable Author is less known as to himself, or more highly valu’d as to his Productions.

The earliest Account of these is said by Plutarch to be some time after his Death, when Lycurgus sail’d to Asia:

"There he had the first sight of Homer’s Works, which were probably preserv’d by the Grand-children of Creophilus; and having observ’d that their pleasurable Air of Fiction did not hinder the Poets abounding in Maxims of State, and Rules of Morality, he transcrib’d and carry’d with him that entire Collection we have now among us: For at that time (continues this Author) there was only an obscure Rumour in Greece to the Reputation of these Poems, and but a few scatter’d Fragments handed about, ’till Lycurgus publish’d them entire."

Thus they were in danger of being lost as soon as they were produced, by the Misfortune of the Age, a want of Taste in Learning, or the manner in which they were left to Posterity, when they fell into the Hands of Lycurgus. He was a Man of great Learning, a Law-giver to a People divided and untractable, and one who had a Notion that Poetry influenc’d and civiliz’d the Minds of Men; which made him smooth the way to his Constitution by the Songs of Thales the Cretan, whom he engag’d to write upon Obedience and Concord. As he propos’d to himself that the Constitution he would raise upon this their Union should be of a martial Nature, these Poems were of an extraordinary Value to him: for they came with a full Force into his Scheme; the Moral they inspir’d was Unity; the Air they breath’d was Martial; and their Story had this particular Engagement for the Lacedaemonians, that it shew’d Greece in War, and Asia subdu’d under the Conduct of one of their own Monarchs, who commanded all the Graecian Princes. Thus the Poet both pleas’d the Law-giver, and the People: from whence he had a double Influence when the Laws were settled. For his Poem then became a Panegyrick on their Constitution, as well as a Register of their Glory; and confirm’d them in the Love of it by a gallant Description of those Qualities and Actions for which it was adapted. This made Cleomenes call him The Poet of the Lacedaemonians: And therefore when we remember that Homer owed the Publication of his Works to Lycurgus, we should grant too, that Lycurgus owed in some degree the Enforcement of his Laws to the Works of Homer. At their first Appearance in Greece, they were not digested into a regular Body, but remain’d as they were brought over in several detach’d Pieces, call’d (according to Aelian ) from the Subject on which they treated; as the Battle at the Ships, the Death of Dolon, the Valour of Agamemnon, the Patroclea, the Grot of Calypso, Slaughter of the Wooers, and the like. Nor were these entitled Books, but Rhapsodies; from whence they who sung them had the Title of Rhapsodists. It was in this manner they began to be disperst, while their Poetry, their History, the Glory they ascrib’d to Greece in general, the particular Description they gave of it, and the Compliment they paid to every little State by an honourable mention, so influenc’d all, that they were transcrib’d and sung with general Approbation. But what seems to have most recommended them was, that Greece which could not be great in its divided Condition, looked upon the Fable of them as a likely Plan of future Grandeur. They seem from thenceforward to have had an Eye upon the Conquest of Asia; as a proper Undertaking which by its Importance might occasion Union enough to give a Diversion from Civil Wars, and by its Prosecution bring in an Acquisition of Honour and Empire. This is the meaning of Isocrates, when he tells us, That

" Homer’s Poetry was in the greater Esteem, because it gave exceeding Praise to those who fought against the Barbarians. Our Ancestors (continues he) honour’d it with a Place in Education and musical Contests, that by often hearing it we should have a Notion of an original Enmity between us and those Nations; and that admiring the Virtue of those who fought at Troy, we should be induc’d to emulate their Glory."

And indeed they never quitted this thought, ’till they had successfully carry’d their Arms where-ever Homer might thus excite them.

But while his Works were suffer’d to lie in an unconnected manner, the Chain of Story was not always perceiv’d, so that they lost much of their Force and Beauty by being read disorderly. Wherefore as Lacedaemon had the first Honour of their Publication by Lycurgus, that of their Regulation fell to the share of Athens in the time of Solon, who himself made a Law for their recital. It was then that Pisistratus, the Tyrant of Athens, who was a Man of great Learning and Eloquence (as Cicero has it) first put together the confus’d Parts of Homer, according to that Regularity in which they are now handed down to us. He divided them into the two different Works, entitled the Iliad and Odysses; he digested each according to the Author’s design, to make their Plans become evident; and distinguish’d each again into twenty four Books, to which were afterwards prefix’d the twenty four Letters. There is a Passage indeed in Plato, which takes this Work from Pisistratus, by giving it to his Son Hypparchus; with this addition, that he commanded them to be sung at the Feast call’d Panathenaea. Perhaps it may be, as Leo Allatius has imagin’d, because the Son publish’d the Copy more correctly: This he offers, to reconcile so great a Testimony as Plato’s to the Cloud of Witnesses which are against him in it: But be that as it will, Athens still claims its proper Honour of rescuing the Father of Learning from the Injuries of Time, of having restor’d Homer to himself, and given the World a view of him in his Perfection. So that if his Verses were before admir’d for their Use and Beauty, as the Stars were before they were consider’d in a System of Science; they are now admir’d much more for their graceful Harmony, and that Sphere of Order in which they appear to move. They became henceforward more the Pleasure of the Wits of Greece; more the Subject of their Studies, and the Employment of their Pens.

About the time that this new Edition of Homer was publish’d in Athens, there was one Cynaethus, a learned Rhapsodist, who (as the Scholiast of Pindar informs us) settled first at Syracuse in that Employment; and if (as Leo Allatius believes) he had been before an Assistant in the Edition, he may be suppos’d to have first carry’d it abroad. But it was not long preserv’d correct among his Followers; they committed Mistakes in their Transcriptions and Repetitions, and had even the Presumption to alter some Lines, and interpolate others. Thus the Works of Homer ran the danger of being utterly defac’d; which made it become the concern of Kings and Philosophers, that they should be restor’d to their Primitive Beauty.

In the Front of these is Alexander the Great, for whom they will appear peculiarly calculated, if we consider that no Books more enliven or flatter personal Valour, which was great in him to what we call Romantick: Neither has any Book more places applicable to his Designs on Asia, or (as it happen’d) to his Actions there. It was then no ill Compliment in Aristotle to purge the Iliad, upon his account, from those Errors and Additions which had crept into it. And so far was Alexander himself from esteeming it a Matter of small Importance, that he afterwards assisted in a strict Review of it with Anaxarchus and Calisthenes; whether it was meerly because he esteem’d it a Treasury of military Virtue and Knowledge; or that (according to a late ingenious Conjecture) he had a farther Aim, in promoting the Propagation of it when he was ambitious to be esteem’d a Son of Jupiter; as a Book which treating of the Sons of the Gods, might make the Intercourse between them and Mortals become a familiar Notion. The Review being finish’d, he laid it up in a Casket which was found among the Spoils of Darius as what best deserv’d so inestimable a Case, and from this Circumstance it was nam’d The Edition of the Casket. The Place where the Works of Homer were next found in the greatest Regard, is Aegypt, under the Reign of the Ptolomys. These Kings being descended from Greece retain’d always a Passion for their original Country. The Men, the Books, the Qualifications of it, were in esteem in their Court; they preserv’d the Language in their Family; they encourag’d a Concourse of learned Men; erected the greatest Library in the World; and train’d up their Princes under Graecian Tutors; among whom the most considerable were appointed for Revisers of Homer. The first of these was Zenodotus, Library-Keeper to the first Ptolomy, and qualify’d for this Undertaking by being both a Poet, and a Grammarian; a compounded Character in which there was Fancy for a Discovery of Beauties, and a minuter Judgment for a Detection of Faults. But neither his Copy nor that which his Disciple Aristophanes had made, satisfying Aristarchus, (whom Ptolomy Philometor had appointed over his Son Euergetes ) he set himself to another Correction with all the Wit and Learning he was Master of. He restor’d some Verses to their former Readings, rejected others which he mark’d with Obelisks as spurious, and proceeded with such industrious Accuracy, that, notwithstanding there were some who wrote against his Performance, Antiquity has generally acquiesc’d in it. Nay, so far have they carry’d their Opinion in his favour, as to call a Man an Aristarchus when they meant to say a candid, judicious Critick; in the same manner as they call the contrary a Zoilus, from that Zoilus who about this time wrote an envious Criticism against Homer. And now we mention these two together, I fancy it will be no small Pleasure to the benevolent Part of Mankind, to see how their Characters stand in Contrast to each other, for Examples to future Ages, at the head of the two contrary sorts of Criticism, which proceed from good Nature, or from ill Will. The one was honour’d with the Offices and Countenance of the Court; the other, when he apply’d to the same Place for an Encouragement amongst the Men of Learning, had his Petition rejected: The one had his Fame continu’d to Posterity; the other is only remember’d with Infamy: If the one had Antagonists, they were oblig’d to pay him the deference of a formal Answer; the other was never answer’d but in general, with those opprobrious Names of Thracian Slave and Rhetorical Dog: The one is suppos’d to have his Copy still remaining; while the other’s Remarks are perish’d as things that Men were asham’d to preserve, the just Desert of whatever arises from the miserable Principles of ill Will or Envy.

It was not the Ambition of Aegypt only to have a correct Edition of Homer. We find in the Life of the Poet Aratus, that he, having finish’d a Copy of the Odysses, was sent for by Antiochus King of Syria, and entertain’d by him while he finish’d one of the Iliad. We read too of others which were publish’d with the Names of Countrys; such as the Massaliotick and Synopick: as if the World were agreed to make his Works in their Survival undergo the same Fate with himself; and that as different Cities contended for his Birth, so they might again contend for his true Edition. But though these Reviews were not peculiar to Aegypt, the greatest Honour was theirs, in that universal Approbation which the Performance of Aristarchus receiv’d; and if it be not his Edition which we have at present, we know not to whom to ascribe it.

But the World was not contented barely to have settled an Edition of his Works. There were innumerable Comments in which they were open’d like a Treasury of Learning; and Translations whereby other Languages became enrich’d by an Infusion of his Spirit of Poetry. Aelian tells us, that even the Indians had them in their Tongue, and the Persian Kings sung them in theirs. Persius mentions a Version into Latin by Labeo, and in general the Passages and Imitations which are taken from him, are so numerous that he may be said to have been translated by piecemeal into that, and all other Languages. Which affords us this Remark, that there is hardly any thing in him, which has not been pitch’d upon by some Author or other for a particular Beauty.

It is almost incredible to what an Height the Idea of that Veneration the Ancients paid to Homer will arise, to one who reads particularly with this view, through all these Periods. He was no sooner come from his Obscurity, but Greece receiv’d him with Delight and Profit: There were then but few Books to divide their Attention, and none which had a better Title to engross it all. They made some daily Discoveries of his Beauties, which were still promoted in their different Channels by the favourite Qualities of different Nations. Sparta and Macedon consider’d him most in respect of his warlike Spirit; Athens and Aegypt with regard to his Poetry and Learning; and all their Endeavours united under the Hands of the Learned, to make him blaze forth into an universal Character. His Works, which from the beginning pass’d for excellent Poetry, grew to be History and Geography; they rose to be a Magazine of Sciences; were exalted into a Scheme of Religion; gave a Sanction to whatever Rites they mention’d; were quoted in all Cases for the Conduct of Life, and learned by Heart as the very Book of Belief and Practice. From him the Poets drew their Inspirations, the Criticks their Rules, and the Philosophers a Defence of their Opinions: Every Author was fond to use his Name; and every Profession writ Books upon him, ’till they swell’d to Libraries. The Warriors form’d themselves by his Heroes, and the Oracles deliver’d his Verses for Answers. Nor was Mankind satisfy’d to have thus seated his Character at the top of human Wisdom, but being overborn with an imagination that he transcended their Species, they admitted him to share in those Honours they gave the Deities. They instituted Games for him, dedicated Statues, erected Temples, as at Smyrna, Chios and Alexandria; and Aelian tells us, That when the Argives sacrific’d with their Guests, they us’d to invoke the Presence of Apollo and Homer together.

Thus he was settled on a Foot of Adoration, and continu’d highly venerated in the Roman Empire, when Christianity began. Heathenism was then to be destroy’d, and Homer appear’d the Father of it; whose Fictions were at once the Belief of the Pagan Religion, and the Objections of Christianity against it. He became therefore very deeply involv’d in the Question; and not with that Honour which hitherto attended him, but as a Criminal who had drawn the World into Folly. He was on one hand accus’d for having fram’d Fables upon the Works of Moses; as the Rebellion of the Giants from the building of Babel, and the casting Atè or Strife out of Heaven from the Fall of Lucifer. He was expos’d on the other hand for those which he is said to invent, as when Arnobius crys out,

"This is the Man who wounded your Venus, imprison’d your Mars, who free’d even your Jupiter by Briareus, and who finds Authorities for

all your Vices,"

&c. Mankind was w 1.129 derided for whatever he had hitherto made them believe; and x 1.130 Plato, who expell’d him his Commonwealth, has, of all the Philosophers, found the best Quarter from the Fathers, for passing that Sentence. His finest Beauties began to take a new Appearance of pernicious Qualities; and because they might be consider’d as Allurements to Fancy, or Supports to those Errors with which they were mingled, they were to be depreciated while the Contest of Faith was in being. It was hence, that the reading them was discourag’d, that we hear Ruffinus accusing St. Jerome for it, and that y 1.131 St. Austin rejects him as the grand Master of Fable; tho’ indeed the dulcissimè vanus which he applies to Homer, looks but like a fondling manner of parting with him.

This strong Attack against our Author oblig’d those Philosophers who could have acquiesc’d as his Admirers, to appear as his Defenders; who because they saw the Fables could not be literally supported, endeavour’d to find a hidden Sense, and to carry on every where that Vein of Allegory which was already broken open with Success in some Places. But how miserably were they forc’d to Shifts, when they made Juno’s dressing in the Cestos for Jupiter to signify the purging of the Air as it approach’d the Fire? Or the Story of Mars and Venus, that Inclination they have to Incontinency who are born when these Planets are in Conjunction? Wit and Learning had here a large Field to display themselves, and to disagree in: for sometimes Jupiter, and sometimes Vulcan, was made to signify the Fire; or Mars and Venus were allow’d to give us a Lecture of Morality at one time, and a Problem of Astronomy at another. And these strange Discoveries, which Porphyry and the rest would have to pass for the genuine Theology of the Greeks, prove but (as Eusebius terms it) the perverting of Fables into a mystick Sense. They did indeed often defend Homer, but then they allegorized away their Gods by doing so. What the World took for substantial Objects of Adoration, dissolv’d before its Eyes into a figurative Meaning, a moral Truth, or a Piece of Learning which might equally correspond to any Religion; and the Learned at last had left themselves nothing to worship, when they came to find an Object in Christianity.

The Dispute of Faith being over, ancient Learning re-assumed its Dignity, and Homer obtain’d his proper Place in the Esteem of Mankind. His Books are now no longer the Scheme of a living Religion, but become the Register of one of former Times. They are not now receiv’d for a Rule of Life, but valu’d for those just Observations which are dispers’d through them. They are no longer pronounc’d from Oracles, but quoted still by Authors for their Learning. Those Remarks which the Philosophers made upon them, have their Weight with us; those Beauties which the Poets dwell’d upon, their Admiration: And even after the Abatement of what was extravagant in his Run of Praise, he remains confessedly a mighty Genius not transcended by any which have since arisen; a Prince, as well as a Father, of Poetry.

IT remains in this Historical Essay, to regulate our present Opinion of Homer by a view of his Learning, compar’d with that of his Age. For this end he may first be consider’d as a Poet, that Character which was his professedly; and secondly as one endow’d with other Sciences, which must be spoken of not as in themselves, but as in Subserviency to his main Design. Thus he will be seen on his right Foot of Perfection in one view, and with the just Allowances which should be made on the other: While we pass through the several Heads of Science, the State of those Times in which he writ will show us both the Impediments he rose under, and the Reasons why several things in him which have been objected to, either could not, or should not be otherwise than they are.

As for the State of Poetry, it was at a low Pitch in the Age of Homer. There is mention of Orpheus, Linus, and Musaeus, venerable Names in Antiquity, and eminently celebrated in Fable for the wonderful Power of their Songs and Musick. The learned Fabricius, in his Bibliotheca Graeca, has reckon’d about seventy who are said to have written before Homer: but their Works were not preserv’d, and can be only consider’d (if they were really excellent) as the Happiness of their own Generation. What sort of Poets Homer saw in his own Time may be gather’d from his Description of Demodocus and Phemius, whom he has introduc’d as Opportunities to celebrate his Profession. The imperfect Risings of the Art lay then among the Extempore- Singers of Stories at Banquets, who were half Singers, half Musicians. Nor was the Name of Poet then in being, or once us’d throughout Homer’s Works. From this poor State of Poetry, he has taken a handle to usher it into the World with the boldest Stroke of Praise which has ever been given it. It is in the eighth Odyssey, where Ulysses puts Demodocus upon a trial of Skill. Demodocus having diverted the Guests with some Actions of the Trojan War;

" All this (says Ulysses ) you have sung very elegantly, as if you had either been present, or heard it reported; but pass now to a Subject I shall give you, sing the Management of Ulysses in the wooden Horse, just as it happen’d, and I will acknowledge the Gods have taught you your Songs."

This the Singer being inspir’d from Heaven begins immediately, and Ulysses by weeping at the recital confesses the Truth of it. We see here a Narration which could only pass upon an Age extreamly ignorant in the Nature of Poetry, where that Claim of Inspiration is given to it, which it has never since laid down, and (which is more) a Power of prophecying at pleasure ascrib’d to it. Thus much therefore we gather from himself concerning the most ancient State of Poetry in Greece; that no one was honour’d with the Name of Poet, before Him whom it has especially belong’d to ever after. And if we farther appeal to the consent of Authors, we find he has other Titles for being call’d the first. c 1.140 Josephus observes, That the Greeks have not contested but he was the most ancient, whose Books they had in Writing. Aristotle says, He was the

"first who brought all the Parts of a Poem into one Piece,"

to which he adds,

"with true Judgment,"

to give him a Praise including both the Invention and Perfection. And Horace acquaints us, that he invented the very Measure which is call’d Heroick from the Subjects on which he employ’d it;

Res gestae regumque, ducumque, & fortia bella, Quo scribi possint numero monstravit Homerus .

Whatever was serious or magnificent made a part of his Subject: War and Peace were the comprehensive Division in which he consider’d the World; and the Plans of his Poems were founded on the most active Scenes of each, the Adventures of a Siege, and the Accidents of a Voyage. For these his Spirit was equally active and various, lofty in Expression, clear in Narration, natural in Description, rapid in Action, abundant in Figures. If ever he appears less than himself, it is from the Time he writ in; and if he runs into Errors, it is from an Excess, rather than a Defect of Genius. Thus he rose over the Poetical World, shining out like a Sun all at once, which if it sometimes make too faint an Appearance, ’tis to be ascrib’d only to the necessity of the Season that keeps it at a distance; and if he is sometimes too violent, we confess at the same time that we owe all things to his Heat.

As for his Theology, we see the Heathen System entirely follow’d. This was all he could then have to work upon, and where he fails of Truth for want of Revelation he at least shows his Knowledge in his own Religion by the Traditions he delivers. But we are now upon a Point to be farther handled, because the greatest Controversy concerning the Merit of Homer depends upon it. Let us consider then that there was an Age in Greece, when natural Reason only discover’d there must be something superior to us, and Tradition had affix’d the Notion to a Number of Deities. At this time Homer rose with the finest Turn imaginable for Poetry, who designing to instruct Mankind in the manner for which he was most adapted, writ Poems wherein he made use of the Ministry of the Gods to give the highest Air of Surprize and Veneration to his Writings. He found the Religion of Mankind wrapt up in Fables; it was thought then the easiest way to convey Morals to the People, who were allur’d to Attention by Pleasure, and aw’d with the Opinion of a hidden Mystery. Nor was it his Business when he undertook the Province of a Poet (not of a meer Philosopher) to be the first who should discard That which furnishes Poetry with its most beautiful Appearance: and especially since the Age he liv’d in, by discovering its Taste, had not only given him Authority, but even put him under the necessity of preserving it. Whatever therefore he might think of his Gods, he took them as he found them: he brought them into Action according to the Notions which were then entertain’d, and in some Stories as they were then believ’d; unless we imagine that he invented every thing he delivers. Yet there are several Rays of Truth streaming through all this Darkness, in those Sentiments he entertains concerning the Gods; and several Allegories lightly veil’d over, from whence the learned drew new Knowledges, each according to his Power of Penetration and Fancy. But that we may the better comprehend him in all the Parts of this general View, let us extract from him a Scheme of his Religion.

He has a Jupiter, a Father of Gods and Men, whom he makes supream, and to whom he applies several Attributes, as Wisdom, Justice, Knowledge, Power, &c. which are essentially inherent to the Idea of a God. He has given him two Vessels, out of which he distributes natural Good or Evil for the Life of Man; he places the Gods in Council round him; he makes Prayers pass to and fro before him; and Mankind adore him with Sacrifice. But all this grand Appearance, wherein Poetry paid a deference to Reason, is dash’d and mingled with the Imperfection of our Nature; not only with the applying our Passions to the supreme Being (for Men have always been treated with this Complyance to their Notions) but that he is not even exempted from our common Appetites and Frailties: For he is made to eat, drink, and sleep: but this his Admirers would imagine to be only a grosser way of representing a general Notion of Happiness, because he says in one place, that the Food of the Gods was not of the same Nature with ours. But upon the whole, while he endeavour’d to speak of a Deity without a right Information, he was forc’d to take him from that Image he discover’d in Man; and (like one who being dazled with the Sun in the Heavens, would view him as he is reflected in a River) he has taken off the Impression not only ruffled with the Emotion of our Passions, but obscur’d with the earthy Mixture of our Natures.

The other Gods have all their Provinces assign’d ’em:

"Every thing has its peculiar Deity, says Maximus Tyrius, by which Homer would insinuate that the Godhead was present to all things."

When they are consider’d farther, we find he has turn’d the Virtues and Endowments of our Minds into Persons, to make the Springs of Action become visible; and because they are given by the Gods, he represents them as Gods themselves descending from Heaven. In the same strong Light he shows our Vices when they occasion Misfortunes, like extraordinary Powers which inflict them upon us, and even our natural Punishments are represented as Punishers themselves. But when we come to see the manner they are introduc’d in, they are found feasting, fighting, wounded by Men, and shedding a sort of Blood; in which his Machines play a little too grosly: the Fable which was admitted to procure the Pleasure of Surprize, violently oppresses the Allegory, and it may be lost labour to search for it in every minute Circumstance, if indeed it was intended to be there. The main Design was however Philosophical, the Dress the Poet’s, which is us’d for necessity and allow’d to be ornamental. And there will be something still to be offer’d in his Defence, if he has both preserved the grand Moral from being obscur’d, and adorn’d the Parts of his Works with such Sentiments of the Gods as belong’d to the Age he liv’d in; which that he did, appears from his having then had that Success for which Allegory was contriv’d.

"It is the Madness of Man, says Maximus Tyrius, to dis-esteem what is plain and admire what is hidden; This the Poets discovering invented the Fable for a Remedy, when they treated of holy Matters; which being more obscure than Conversation, and more clear than the Riddle, is a Mean between Knowledge and Ignorance; believ’d partly for being agreeable, and partly for being wonderful. Thus as Poets in Name, and Philosophers in Effect, they drew Mankind gradually to a search after Truth, when the Name of Philosopher would have been harsh and displeasing."

When Homer proceeds to tell us our Duty to these superior Beings, we find Prayer, Sacrifice, Lustration, and all the Rites which were esteem’d religious, constantly recommended under fear of their Displeasure. We find too a Notion of the Soul’s subsisting after this Life, but for want of Revelation he knows not what to reckon the Happiness of a future State, to any one who was not deify’d: Which is plain from the Speech of Achilles to Ulysses in the Region of the dead; where he tells him, that

"he would rather serve the poorest Creature upon Earth than rule over all the departed."

It was chiefly for this Reason that Plato excluded him his Common-Wealth; he thought Homer spoke indecently of the Gods, and dreadfully of a future State; in which Sentence he has made no Allowance for the Times he writ in. But if he can not be defended in every thing as a Theologist, yet we may say in respect of his Poetry, that he has enrich’d it from Theology with true Sentiments for Profit, adorn’d it with Allegories for Pleasure, and by using some Machines which have no farther Significancy or are so refin’d as to make it doubted if they have any, he has however produc’d that Character in Poetry which we call the Marvellous, and from which the Agreeable (according to Aristotle ) is always inseparable.

If we take the State of Greece at his time in a Political View, we find it a disunited Country, made up of small States; and whatever was manag’d in War amounted to no more than intestine Skirmishes or Pyracies abroad, which were easily reveng’d on account of their Disunion. Thus one People stole Europa, and another Io; the Graecians took Hesione from Troy, and the Trojans took Helena from Greece in Revenge. But this last having greater Friends and Alliances than any upon whom the Rapes had hitherto fallen, the Ruin of Troy was the Consequence; and the Force of the Asiatick Coasts was so broken, that this Accident put an end to the Age of Pyracies. Then the intestine Broils of Greece (which had been discontinued during the League) were renew’d upon its Dissolution. War and Sedition mov’d People from Place to Place during its want of Inhabitants; Exiles from one Country were receiv’d for Kings in another; and Leaders took Tracts of Ground to bestow them upon their Followers. Commerce was neglected, living at home unsafe, and nothing of Moment tranfacted by any but against their Neighbours: Athens only, where the People were undisturb’d because it was a barren Soil which no Body coveted, had begun to send Colonies abroad, being over-stock’d with Inhabitants.

Now a Poem coming out at so seasonable a Time, with a Moral capable of healing these Disorders by promoting Union, we may reasonably think it was design’d for that End to which it is so peculiarly adapted. If we imagine therefore that Homer was a Politician in this Affair, we may suppose him to have look’d back into the Ages past, to see if at any time the Disorder had been less; and to have pitch’d upon that Story wherein it found a temporary Cure, that by celebrating it with all possible Honour he might instil a Desire of the same sort of Union into the Hearts of his Countrymen. This indeed was a Work which could belong to none but a Poet, when Governors had Power only over small Territories, and the numerous Governments were every way independent. It was then that all the Charms of Poetry were call’d forth to insinuate the important Glory of an Alliance, and the Iliad deliver’d from the Muses with all the Pomp of Words and artificial Influence. Union among themselves was recommended, Peace at home, and Glory abroad: And lest this should be render’d useless by Mismanagements, he lets us into farther Lessons concerning it. How when his Kings quarrel, their Subjects suffer; when they act in Conjunction, Victory attends them. When they meet in Council, Plans are drawn and Provisions made for future Action; and when in the Field, the Arts of War are describ’d with the greatest Exactness. These were Lectures of general Concern to Mankind, proper for the Poet to deliver and Kings to attend to; such as made Porphyry write of the Profit that Princes might receive from Homer; and Stratocles, Hermias, and Frontinus extract military Discipline out of him. Thus tho’ Plato has banish’d him from one imaginary Commonwealth, he has still been serviceable to many real Kingdoms.

The Morality of Greece could not be perfect while there was a Weakness in its Government; Faults in Politicks are occasion’d by Faults in Ethicks, and occasion them in their turn. The Division into so many States was the rise of frequent Quarrels, whereby Men were bred up in a kind of rough untractable Disposition. Bodily Strength met with the greatest Honours, because it was daily necessary to the Subsistence of little Governments; and that headlong Courage which throws itself forward to Enterprize and Plunder, was universally caress’d, because it carry’d all things before it. It is no wonder in an Age of such Education and Customs, that, as Thucydides says,

"Robbing was honour’d, provided it were done with Gallantry, and that the ancient Poets made People question one another as they sail’d by, if they were Thieves? as a thing for which no one ought either to be scorn’d or upbraided."

These were the sort of Actions which the Singers then recorded, and it was out of such an Age that Homer was to take his Subjects. For this reason (not a want of Morality in him) we see a boasting Temper and unmanag’d Roughness in the Spirit of his Heroes, which ran out in Pride, Anger, or Cruelty. It is not in him as in our modern Romances, where Men are drawn in Perfection, and we but read with a tender Weakness what we can neither apply nor emulate. Homer writ for Men, and therefore he writ of them; if the World had been better, he would have shown it so; as the Matter now stands, we see his People with the turn of his Age, insatiably thirsting after Glory and Plunder; for which however he has found them a lawful Cause, and taken care to retard their Success by those very Faults.

In the Prosecution of the Story every Part of it has its Lessons of Morality: There is brotherly Love in Agamemnon and Menelaus, Friendship in Achilles and Patroclus, and the Love of his Country in Hector. But since we have spoken of the Iliad as more particular for its Politicks, we may consider the Odysses as its Moral is more directly fram’d for Ethicks. It carries the Heroe through a world of Trials both of the dangerous and pleasurable Nature. It shows him first under most surprizing Weights of Adversity, among Shipwrecks and Savages; all these he is made to pass through in the Methods by which it becomes a Man to conquer; a Patience in suffering, and a Presence of Mind in every Accident. It shows him again in another View, tempted with the Baits of idle or unlawful Pleasures, and then points out the Methods of being safe from them. But if in general we consider the care our Author has taken to fix his Lessons of Morality by the Proverbs and Precepts he delivers, we shall not wonder if Greece which afterwards gave the Appellation of Wise to Men who settled single Sentences of Truth, should give him the Title of the Father of Virtue for introducing such a Number. To be brief, if we take the Opinion of Horace, he has propos’d him to us as a Master of Morality; he lays down the common Philosophical Division of Good into pleasant, profitable, and honest; and then asserts that Homer has more fully and clearly instructed us in each of them, than the most rigid Philosophers.

Some indeed have thought notwithstanding all this, that Homer had only a design to please in his Inventions; and that others have since extracted Morals out of his Stories (and indeed all Stories are capable of being us’d so.) But this is an Opinion concerning Poetry which the World has rather degenerated into, than begun with. The Traditions of Orpheus’s civilizing Mankind by Hymns on the Gods, with others of the like Nature, may show there was a better use of the Art both known and practis’d. There is also a remarkable Passage of this kind in the third Book of the Odysses, that Agamemnon left one of the Poets of his Times in the Court when he sail’d for Troy; and that his Queen was preserv’d virtuous by his Songs, ’till Aegysthus was forc’d to expel him in order to debauch her. Here he has hinted what a true Poetical Spirit can do when apply’d to the Promotion of Virtue; and from this one may judge he could not but design That himself, which he recommends as the Duty and Merit of his Profession. Others since his Time may have seduc’d the Art to worse Intentions; but they who are offended at the Liberties of some Poets, should not judge all in the gross for trifling or Corruption; especially when the Evidence runs so strongly for any One to the contrary.

We may in general go on to observe, that the time when Homer was born did not abound in Learning. For whereever Politicks and Morality is weak, it wants its peaceable Air to thrive in, and that Opportunity which is not known in the Ages of unsettled Life. He is himself the Man from whom we have the first Accounts of Antiquity, either in its Actions or Learning; from whom we hear what Aegypt or Greece could inform him in, and whatever himself could discover by the Strength of Nature or Industry. But however that we may not mistake the Elogies of those Ancients who call him the Father of Arts and Sciences, and be surpriz’d to find so little of them (as they are now in Perfection) in his Works; we should know that this Character is not to be understood at large, as if he had included the full and regular Systems of every thing: He is to be consider’d professedly only in Quality of a Poet; this was his Business, to which, as whatever he knew was to be subservient, so he has not fail’d to introduce those Strokes of Knowledge from the whole Circle of Arts and Sciences, which the Subject demanded either for Necessity or Ornament. This will appear on a fair View of him in each of these Lights.

Before his Time there were no Historians in Greece: He treated Historically of past Transactions, according as he could be inform’d by Tradition, Song, or whatever Method there was of preserving their Memory. For this we have the Consent of Antiquity; they have generally more appeal’d to his Authority, and more insisted on it than on the Testimony of any other Writer, when they treat of the Rites, Customs, and Manners of the first Times. They have generally believ’d that the Acts of Tydeus at Thebes, the second Siege of that City, the Settlement of Rhodes, the Battel between the Curetes and the Aetolians, the Account of the Kings of Mycenae by the Sceptre of Agamemnon, the Acts of the Greeks at Troy, and many other such Accounts, are some of them wholly preserv’d by him, and the rest as faithfully related as by any Historian. Nor perhaps was all of his Invention which seems to be feign’d, but rather frequently the obscure Traces and Remains of real Persons and Actions; which as Strabo observes, when History was transmitted by Oral Tradition, might be mix’d with Fable before it came into the Hands of the Poet.

"This happen’d (says he) to Herodotus, the first professed Historian, who is often as fabulous as Homer when he defers to the common Reports of Countreys; and it is not to be reckon’d to either as a fault, but as a necessity of the Times."

Nay, the very Passages which cause us to tax them at this distance with being fabulous, might be occasion’d by their Diligence, and a fear of erring, if they too hastily rejected those Reports which had pass’d current in the Nations they describ’d.

Before his Time there was no such thing as Geography in Greece. For this we have the Suffrage of Strabo the best of Geographers, who approves the Opinion of Hipparchus and other Ancients, that Homer was the very Author of it; and upon this Account begins his Treatise of the Science itself with an Encomium on him. As to the general Part of it, we find he had a Knowledge of the Earth’s being surrounded with the Ocean, because he makes the Sun and Stars both to rise and set in it; and that he knew the Use of the Stars is plain from his making Ulysses sail by the Observation of them. But the Instance oftnest alledg’d upon this Point is the Shield of Achilles: where he places the Earth encompass’d with the Sea, and gives the Stars the Names they are yet known by, as the Hyades, Pleiades, the Bear, and Orion. By the three first of these he represents the Constellations of the Northern Region; and in the last he gives a single Representative of the Southern, to which (as it were for a counter-balance) he adds a Title of Greatness, [Greek]. Then he tells us that the Bear, or Stars of the Arctick Circle, never disappear; as an Observation which agrees with no other. And if to this we add (what Eratosthenes thought he meant) that the five Plates which were fastened on the Shield, divided it by the Lines where they met, into the five Zones, it will appear an original design of Globes and Spheres. In the particular Parts of Geography, his Knowledge is intirely incontestable. Strabo refers to him upon all occasions, allowing that he knew the Extreams of the Earth, some of which he names and others describes by Signs, as the Fortunate Islands. The same Author takes notice of his Accounts concerning the several Soils, Plants, Animals, and Customs; as Aegypt’s being fertile of medicinal Herbs, Lybia’s Fruitfulness, where the Sheep have Horns, and yean thrice a Year, &c. which are Knowledges that make Geography more various and profitable. But what all have agreed to celebrate is his Description of Greece; which has had Laws made for its Preservation, and Contests between Governments decided by its Authority: Which Strabo acknowledges to have no Epithet, or ornamental Expression for any Place, that is not drawn from its Nature, Quality, or Circumstances; and professes after so long an Interval to deviate from it only where the Countrey had undergone Alterations, that cast the Description into Obscurity.

In his time, Rhetorick was not known; that Art took its Rise out of Poetry, which was not ’till then establish’d.

"The

Oratorial Elocution (says Strabo ) is but an Imitation of the Poetical: this appear’d first and was approv’d: They who imitated it took off the Measures, but still preserv’d all the other Parts of Poetry in their Writings: Such as these were Cadmus the Milesian, Pherecydes, and Hecataeus. Then their Followers took something more from what was left, and at last Elocution descended into the Prose which is now among us."

But if Rhetorick is owing to Poetry, the Obligation is still more due to Homer. He (as y 1.166 Quintilian tells us) gave both the Pattern and Rise to all the Parts of it.

" Hic omnibus eloquentiae partibus exemplum & ortum dedit: hunc nemo in magnis rebus sublimitate, in parvis proprietate, superavit. Idem laetus & pressus, jucundus & gravis, tùm copiâ tùm brevitate admirabilis, nec Poeticâ modò sed oratoriâ virtute eminentissimus. "

From him therefore they who settled the Art found it proper to deduce the Rules, which was easily done, when they had divided their Observations into the Kinds and the Ornaments of Elocution. For the Kinds, the

"Ancients (says A. Gell. ) settled them according to the three which they observe in his principal Speakers; his Ulysses who is magnificent and flowing, his Menelaus who is short and close, and his Nestor who is moderate and dispassion’d, and has a kind of middle Eloquence participating of both the former."

And for the Ornaments, a 1.168 Aristotle, the great Master of the Rhetoricians, shows what deference is paid to Homer, when he orders the Orator to lay down his Heads, and express both the Manners and Affections of his Work with an Imitation of that Diction, and those Figures, which the divine Homer excel’d in. This is the constant Language of those who succeeded him, and the Opinion so far prevail’d as to make b 1.169 Quintilian observe, that they who have written concerning the Arts of Speaking, take from Homer most of the Instances of their Similitudes, Amplifications, Examples, Digressions, and Arguments.

As to Natural Philosophy, the Age was not arriv’d in which it flourish’d; however some of its Notions may be trac’d in him. As when he says that the Fountains and Rivers come from the Ocean, he holds a Circulation of Fluids in the Earth. But as this is a Branch of Learning which does not lie much in the way of a Poet who speaks of Heroes and Wars; the desire to prove his Knowledge this way has only run Politian and others into trifling Inferences: as when they would have it that he understood Nature, because he mentions Sun, Rain, Wind, and Thunder. The most probable way of making out his Knowledge in this kind, is by supposing he couch’d it in Allegories; and that he sometimes us’d the Names of the Gods as his Terms for the Elements, as the Chymists now use them for Metals. But in applying this to him we must tread very carefully; not searching for Allegory too industriously where the Passage may instruct by Example; and endeavouring rather to find the Fable an Ornament to what is easily known, than to make it a Cover to curious and unknown Problems.

As for Medicine, something of it must have been understood in that Age, though it was so far from Perfection that (according to Celsus ) what concern’d Diet was invented long afterwards by Hippocrates. The Accidents of Life make the Search after Remedies too indispensible a Duty to be neglected at any time. Accordingly he tells us, that the Aegyptians who had many medicinal Plants in their Countrey, were all Physicians: and perhaps he might have learnt his own Skill from his Acquaintance with that Nation. The State of War which Greece had liv’d in, requir’d a Knowledge in the healing of Wounds: and this might make him breed his Princes, Achilles, Patroclus, Podalirius, and Machaon to the Science. What Homer thus attributes to others he knew himself, and he has given us reason to believe, not slightly. For if we consider his Insight into the Structure of the human Body, it is so nice, that he has been judg’d by some to have wounded his Heroes with too much Science: Or if we observe his Cure of Wounds, which are the Accidents proper to an Epic Poem, we find him directing the Chirurgical Operation, sometimes infusing Lenitives, and at other times bitter Powders, when the Effusion of Blood requir’d astringent Qualities.

For Statuary, it appears by the Accounts of Aegypt and the Palladium, that there was enough of it very early in the World for those Images which were requir’d in the Worship of their Gods; but there are none mention’d as valuable in Greece so early, nor was the Art establish’d on its Rules before Homer. He found it agreeable to the Worship in use, and necessary for his Machinery, that his Gods should be cloath’d in Bodies: Wherefore he took care to give them such as carry’d the utmost Perfection of the human Form; and distinguish’d them from each other even in this superior Beauty, with such Marks as were agreeable to each of the Deities.

"This, says Strabo, awaken’d the Conceptions of the eminent Statuaries, while they strove to keep up the Grandeur of that Idea which Homer had impress’d upon their Imagination; as we read of Phidias concerning the Statue of Jupiter. "

And because they copy’d their Gods from him in their best Performances, his Descriptions became the Characters which were afterwards pursu’d in all Works of a good Taste. Hence came the common Saying of the Ancients,

"That either Homer was the only Man who had seen the Forms of the Gods, or the only one who had shown them to Men;"

a Passage which h 1.178 Madam Dacier wrests to prove the Truth of his Theology, different from Strabo’s Acceptation of it.

There are, besides what we have spoken of, other Sciences pretended to be found in him. Thus Macrobius discovers that the Chain with which Jupiter says he could lift the World, is a metaphysical Notion, that means a Connexion of all Things from the supream Being to the meanest Part of the Creation. Others, to prove him skilful in judicial Astrology, bring a Quotation concerning the Births of Hector and Polydamas on the same Night; who were nevertheless of different Qualifications, one excelling in War, and the other in Eloquence. Others again will have him to be vers’d in Magick, from his Stories concerning Ciree. These and many of the like Nature are Interpretations strain’d or trifling, such as Homer does not want for a Proof of his Learning, and by which we contribute nothing to raise his Character, while we sacrifice our Judgment to him in the Eyes of others.

It is sufficient to have gone thus far, in shewing he was a Father of Learning, a Soul capable of ranging over the whole Creation with an intellectual View, shining alone in an Age of Obscurity, and shining beyond those who have had the Opportunity of more learned Ages; leaving behind him a Work adorn’d with the Knowledge of his own Time, and in which he has before-hand broken up the Fountains of several Sciences which were brought nearer to Perfection by Posterity: A Work which shall always stand at the top of the sublime Character, to be gaz’d at by Readers with an Admiration of its Perfection, and by Writers with a Despair that it should ever be emulated with Success.

FINIS.

PAge 15. line 34. for brings him, read brings it. Pag. 17. in the References at the bottom, for [Greek], read [Greek], and for [Greek], read [Greek]. Pag. 36. in the Citation from Horace, for Argue, read Arguet.

PERHAPS it may be necessary in this Place at the Opening of Homer’s Battels, to premise some Observations upon them in general. I shall first endeavour to shew the Conduct of the Poet herein, and next collect some Antiquities, that tend to a more distinct understanding of those Descriptions which make so large a Part of the Poem.

One may very well apply to Homer himself what he says of his Heroes at the end of the fourth Book, that whosoever should be guided thro’ their Battels by Minerva, and pointed to every Scene of them, would see nothing through the whole but Subjects of Surprize and Applause. When the Reader reflects that no less than the Compass of twelve Books is taken up in these, he will have Reason to wonder by what Methods our Author could prevent Descriptions of such a length from being tedious. It is not enough to say, that tho’ the Subject itself be the same, the Actions are always different; That we have now distinct Combates, now promiscuous Fights, now single Duels, now general Engagements: Or that the Scenes are perpetually vary’d; we are now in the Fields, now at the Fortification of the Greeks, now at the Ships, now at the Gates of Troy, now at the River Scamander: But we must look farther into the Art of the Poet to find the Reasons of this astonishing Variety.

We may first observe that Diversity in the Deaths of his Warriors, which he has supply’d by the vastest Fertility of Invention that ever was. These he distinguishes several ways: Sometimes by the Characters of the Men, their Age, Office, Profession, Nation, Family,&c. One is a blooming Youth, whose Father dissuaded him from the War; one is a Priest whose Piety could not save him; one is a Sportsman whom Diana taught in vain; one is the Native of a far-distant Country who is never to return; one is descended from a Noble Line which ends in his Death; one is made remarkable by his Boasting; another by his Beseeching; and another who is distinguish’d no way else is mark’d by his Habit and the Singularity of his Armor.

Sometimes he varies these Deaths by the several Postures in which his Heroes are represented either fighting or falling. Some of these are so exceedingly exact, that one may guess from the very Position of the Combatant, whereabouts the Wound will light: Others so very peculiar and uncommon, that they could only be the Effect of an Imagination which had search’d thro’ all the Ideas of Nature. Such is that Picture of Mydon in the fifth Book, whose Arm being numb’d by a blow on the Elbow, drops the Reins that trail on the Ground; and then being suddenly struck on the Temples falls headlong from the Chariot in a soft and deep Place; where he sinks up to the Shoulders in the Sands, and continues a while fix’d by the Weight of his Armor, with his Legs quivering in the Air, ’till he is trampled down by his Horses.

Another Cause of this Variety is the Difference of the Wounds that are given in the Ilaid: They are by no means like the Wounds described by most other Poets, which are commonly made in the self-same obvious Places: The Heart and Head serve for all those in general who understand no Anatomy, and sometimes for Variety they kill Men by Wounds that are no where mortal but in their Poems. As the whole human Body is the Subject of these, so nothing is more necessary to him who would describe them well, than a thorough Knowledge of its Structure; even tho’ the Poet is not professedly to write of them as an Anatomist; in the same manner as an exact Skill in Anatomy is necessary to those Painters that would excel in drawing the Naked, tho’ they are not to make every Muscle as visible as in a Book of Chirurgery. It appears from so many Passages in Homer that he was perfectly Master of this Science, that it would be needless to cite any in particular. One may only observe, that if we thoroughly examine all the Wounds he has described, tho’ so infinite in Number, and so many ways diversify’d, we shall hardly find one which will contradict this Observation.

I must just add a Remark, that the various Periphrases and Circumlocutions by which Homer expresses the single Act of Dying, have supply’d Virgil and the succeeding Poets with all their manners of phrasing it. Indeed he repeats the same Verse on that Occasion more often than they— [Greek], &c. But tho’ it must be owned he had more frequent Occasions for a Line of this Kind than any Poet, as no other has describ’d half so many Deaths, yet one cannot ascribe this to any Sterility of Expression, but to the Genius of his Times, that delighted in those reiterated Verses. We find Repetitions of the same sort affected by the sacred Writers, such as He was gathered to his People; He slept with his Fathers, and the like. And upon the whole they have a certain antiquated Harmony not unlike the Burthen of a Song, which the Ear is willing to suffer, and as it were rests upon.

As the perpetual Horror of Combates, and a Succession of Images of Death, could not but keep the Imagination very much on the stretch; Homer has been careful to contrive such Reliefs and Pauses as might divert the Mind to some other Scene, without losing Sight of his principal Object. His Comparisons are the more frequent on this Account; for a Comparison serves this End the most effectually of any thing, as it is at once correspondent to, and differing from the Subject. Those Criticks who fancy that the Use of Comparisons distracts the Attention, and draws it from the first Image which should most employ it (as that we lose the Idea of the Battel itself, while we are led by a Simile to that of a Deluge or a Storm:) Those, I say, may as well imagine we lose the Thought of the Sun, when we see his Reflection in the Water; where he appears more distinctly, and is contemplated more at ease than if we gaz’d directly at his Beams. For ’tis with the Eye of the Imagination as with our corporeal Eye, it must sometimes be taken off from the Object in order to see in the better. The same Criticks that are displeased to have their Fancy distracted (as they call it) are yet so inconsistent with themselves as to object to Homer that his Similes are too much alike, and are too often derived from the same Animal. But is it not more reasonable (according to their own Notion) to compare the same Man always to the same Animal, than to see him sometimes a Sun, sometimes a Tree, and sometimes a River? Tho’ Homer speaks of the same Creature, he so diversifies the Circumstances and Accidents of the Comparisons, that they always appear quite different. And to say Truth, it is not so much the Animal or the Thing, as the Action or Posture of them, that employs our Imagination: Two different Animals in the same Action are more like to each other, than one and the same Animal is to himself, in two different Actions. And those who in reading Homer are shock’d that ’tis always a Lion, may as well be angry that ’tis always a Man. What may seem more exceptionable is his inserting the same Comparisons in the same Words at length upon different Occasions, by which Management he makes one single Image afford many Ornaments to several Parts of the Poem. But may not one say Homer is in this like a skilful Improver, who places a beautiful Statue in a well-disposed Garden so as to answer several Vistas, and by that Artifice one single Figure seems multiply’d into as many Objects as there are Openings from whence it may be viewed?

What farther relieves and softens these Descriptions of Battels, is the Poet’s wonderful Art of introducing many pathetick Circumstances about the Deaths of the Heroes, which raise a different Movement in the Mind from what those Images naturally inspire, I mean Compassion and Pity; when he causes us to look back upon the lost Riches, Possessions, and Hopes of those who die: When he transports us to their Native Countries and Paternal Seats, to see the Griefs of their aged Fathers, the Despair and Tears of their Widows, or the abandon’d Condition of their Orphans. Thus when Protesilaus falls, we are made to reflect on the lofty Palaces he left half finish’d; when the Sons of Phenops are killed, we behold the mortifying Distress of their wealthy Father, who saw his Estate divided before his Eyes, and taken in Trust for Strangers. When Axylus dies, we are taught to compassionate the hard Fate of that generous and hospitable Man, whose House was the House of all Men, and who deserv’d that glorious Elogy of, The Friend of Human-kind. It is worth taking Notice too, what Use Homer every where makes of each little Accident or Circumstance that can naturally happen in a Battel, thereby to cast a Variety over his Action; as well as of every Turn of Mind or Emotion a Hero can possibly feel, such as Resentment, Revenge, Concern, Confusion, &c. The former of these makes his Work resemble a large History-Piece, where even the less important Figures and Actions have yet some convenient Place or Corner to be shewn in; and the latter gives it all the Advantages of Tragedy in those various Turns of Passion that animate the Speeches of his Heroes, and render his whole Poem the most Dramatick of any Epick whatsoever.

It must also be observ’d that the constant Machines of the Gods conduce very greatly to vary these long Battels, by a continual Change of the Scene from Earth to Heaven. Homer perceiv’d them too necessary for this Purpose to abstain from the Use of them, even after Jupiter had enjoin’d the Deities not to Act on either side. It is remarkable how many Methods he has found to draw them into every Book; where if they dare not assist the Warriors, at least they are very helpful to the Poet.

But there is nothing that more contributes to the Variety, Surprize, and Eclat of Homer’s Battels, or is more perfectly admirable in itself, than that artful Manner of taking Measure, or (as one may say) Gaging his Heroes by each other, and thereby elevating the Character of one Person by the Opposition of it to that of some other whom he is made to excell. So that he many times describes one only to image another, and raises one only to raise another. I cannot better exemplify this Remark, than by giving an Instance in the Character of Diomed that lies before me. Let us observe by what a Scale of Oppositions he elevates this Hero, in the fifth Book, first to excell all human Valour, and after to rival the Gods themselves. He distinguishes him first from the Grecian Captains in general, each of whom he represents conquering a single Trojan, while Diomed constantly encounters two at once; and while they are engag’d each in his distinct Post, he only is drawn fighting in every quarter, and slaughtering on every side. Next he opposes him to Pandarus, next to Aeneas, and then to Hector. So of the Gods he shews him first against Venus, then Apollo, then Mars, and lastly in the eighth Book against Jupiter himself in the midst of his Thunders. The same Conduct is observable more or less in regard to every Personage of his Work.

This Subordination of the Heroes is one of the Causes that make each of his Battels rise above the other in Greatness, Terror, and Importance, to the end of the Poem. If Diomed has perform’d all these Wonders in the first Combates, it is but to raise Hector, at whose Appearance he begins to fear. If in the next Battels Hector triumphs not only over Diomed, but over Ajax and Patroclus, sets fire to the Fleet, wins the Armor of Achilles, and singly eclipses all the Heroes; in the midst of all this Glory, Achilles appears, Hector flies, and is slain.

The Manner in which his Gods are made to act, no less advances the Gradation we are speaking of. In the first Battels they are seen only in short and separate Excursions: Venus assists Paris, Minerva Diomed, or Mars Hector. In the next a clear Stage is left for Jupiter, to display his Omnipotence and turn the Fate of Armies alone. In the last, all the Powers of Heaven are let down and banded into regular Parties, Gods encountring Gods, Jove encouraging them with his Thunders, Neptune raising his Tempests, Heaven flaming, Earth trembling, and Pluto himself starting from the Throne of Hell.

I AM now to take Notice of some Customs of Antiquity, relating to the Arms and Art Military of those Times, which are proper to be known in order to form a right Notion of our Author’s Descriptions of War.

That Homer copied the Manners and Customs of the Age he writ of, rather than of that he lived in, has been observed in some Instances. As that he no where represents Cavalry or Trumpets to have been used in the Trojan Wars, tho’ they apparently were in his own Time. It is not therefore impossible but there may be found in his Works some Deficiencies in the Art of War, which are not to be imputed to his Ignorance, but to his Judgment.

Horses had not been brought into Greece long before the Siege of Troy. They were originally Eastern Animals, and if we find at that very Period so great a Number of them reckon’d up in the Wars of the Israelites, it is the less a wonder considering they came from Asia. The Practice of riding them was so little known in Greece a few Years before, that they look’d upon the Centaurs who first used it, as Monsters compounded of Men and Horses. Nestor in the first Iliad says he had seen these Centaurs in his Youth, and Polypaetes in the second is said to have been born on the Day that his Father expelled them from Pelion to the Desarts of Aethica. They had no other Use of Horses than to draw their Chariots in Battel, so that whenever Homer speaks of fighting from an Horse, taming an Horse, or the like, it is constantly to be understood of fighting from a Chariot, or taming Horses to that Service. This (as we have said) was a piece of Decorum in the Poet; for in his own Time they were arrived to such a Perfection in Horsemanship, that in the fifteenth Iliad℣. 680. we have a Simile taken from an extraordinary Feat of Activity, where one Man manages four Horses at once, and leaps from the Back of one to another at full Speed.

If we consider in what high Esteem among Warriors these noble Animals must have been at their first coming into Greece, we shall the less wonder at the frequent Occasions Homer has taken to describe and celebrate them. It is not so strange to find them set almost upon a level with Men, at the time when a Horse in the Prizes was of equal Value with a Captive. The Chariots were in all Probability very low. For we frequently find in the Iliad, that a Person who stands erect on a Chariot is killed (and sometimes by a Stroke on the Head) by a Foot-Soldier with a Sword. This may farther appear from the Ease and Readiness with which they alight or mount on every Occasion, to facilitate which, the Chariots were made open behind. That the Wheels were but small, may be guest from a Custom they had of taking them off and setting them on, as they were laid by, or made use of. Hebe in the fifth Book puts on the Wheels of Juno’s Chariot when she calls for it in haste. And it seems to be with Allusion to the same Practice that it is said in Exodus Ch. 14. The Lord took off their Chariot Wheels, so that they drove them heavily. The Sides were also low; for whoever is killed in his Chariot throughout the Poem, constantly falls to the Ground as having nothing to support him. That the whole Machine was very small and light, is evident from a Passage in the tenth Iliad, where Diomed having taken a Chariot, debates whether he shall draw it out of the way, or carry it on his Shoulders to a Place of Safety. All these Particulars agree with the Representations of the Chariots on the most ancient Greek Coins; where the Tops of them reach not so high as the Backs of the Horses, the Wheels are yet lower, and the Heroes who stand in them are seen from the Knee upwards. This may serve to shew those Criticks are under a Mistake, who blame Homer for making his Warriors sometimes retire behind their Chariots, as if it were a Piece of Cowardice: which was as little disgraceful then, as it is now to alight from one’s Horse in a Battel on any necessary Emergency.

There were generally two Persons in each Chariot, one of whom was wholly employ’d in guiding the Horses. They used indifferently two, three, or four Horses: From hence it happens, that sometimes when a Horse is killed, the Hero continues the Fight with the two or more that remain; and at other times a Warrior retreats upon the Loss of one; not that he has less Courage than the other, but that he has fewer Horses.

Their Swords were all broad cutting Swords, for we find they never stab but with their Spears. The Spears were used two ways, either to push with, or to cast from them, like the missive Javelins. It seems surprizing that a Man should throw a Dart or Spear with such Force as to pierce thro’ both sides of the Armor and the Body (as is often described in Homer.) For if the Strength of the Men was Gigantick, the Armor must have been strong in Proportion. Some Solution might be given for this, if we imagin’d the Armor was generally Brass, and the Weapons pointed with Iron; and if we could fancy that Homer call’d the Spears and Swords Brazen in the same manner that he calls the Reins of a Bridle Ivory, only from the Ornaments about them. But there are Passages where the Point of the Spear is expressly said to be of Brass, as in the Description of that of Hector in Iliad 6. ℣. 320. Pausanias in Laconicis takes it for granted, that the Arms, as well offensive as defensive, were Brass. He says the Spear of Achilles was kept in his Time in the Temple of Minerva, the Top and Point of which were of Brass; and the Sword of Meriones, in that of Aesculapius among the Nicomedians, was entirely of the same Metal. But be it as it will, there are Examples even at this Day of such a prodigious Force in casting Darts, as almost exceeds Credibility. The Turks and Arabs will pierce thro’ thick Planks with Darts of harden’d Wood; which can only be attributed to their being bred (as the Ancients were) to that Exercise, and to the Strength and Agility acquir’d by a constant Practice of it.

We may ascribe to the same Cause their Power of casting Stones of a vast Weight, which appears a common Practice in these Battels. Those are in a great Error, who imagine this to be only a fictitious Embellishment of the Poet, which was one of the Exercises of War among the ancient Greeks and Orientals. St. Jerome tells us, it was an old Custom in Palestine, and in Use in his own Time, to have round Stones of a great Weight kept in the Castles and Villages for the Youth to try their Strength with. And the Custom is yet extant in some Parts of Scotland, where Stones for the same Purpose are laid at the Gates of great Houses, which they call Putting-Stones. Another Consideration which will account for many things that may seem uncouth in Homer, is the Reflection that before the Use of Fire-Arms there was infinitely more Scope for personal Valor than in the modern Battels. Now whensoever the personal Strength of the Combatants happen’d to be unequal, the declining a single Combate could not be so dishonourable as it is in this Age, when the Arms we make use of put all Men on a level. For a Soldier of far inferior Strength may manage a Rapier or Fire-Arms so expertly as to be an Overmatch to his Adversary. This may appear a sufficient Excuse for what in the modern Construction might seem Cowardice in Homer’s Heroes, when they avoid engaging with others whose bodily Strength exceeds their own. The Maxims of Valor in all Times were founded upon Reason, and the Cowardice ought rather in this Case to be imputed to him who braves his Inferior. There was also more Leisure in their Battels before the Knowledge of Fire-Arms; and this in a good Degree accounts for those Harangues his Heroes make to each other in the Time of Combate.

There was another Practice frequently used by these ancient Warriors, which was to spoil an Enemy of his Arms after they had slain him; and this Custom we see them frequently pursuing with such Eagerness as if they look’d on their Victory not complete ’till this Point was gain’d. Some modern Criticks have accused them of Avarice on account of this Practice, which might probably arise from the great Value and Scarceness of Armor in that early Time and Infancy of War. It afterwards became a Point of Honour like gaining a Standard from the Enemy. Moses and David speak of the Pleasure of obtaining many Spoils. They preserv’d them as Monuments of Victory, and even Religion at last became interested herein, when those Spoils were consecrated in the Temples of the Tutelar Deities of the Conqueror.

The Reader may easily see I set down these Heads just as they occur to my Memory, and only as Hints to farther Observations; which any one who is conversant in Homer can not fail to make, if he will but think a little in the same Track.

It is no Part of my Design to enquire what Progress had been made in the Art of War at this early Period: The bare Perusal of the Iliad will best inform us of it. But what I think tends more immediately to the better Comprehension of these Descriptions, is to give a short View of the Scene of War, the Situation of Troy, and those Places which Homer mentions, with the proper Field of each Battel: Putting together for this Purpose those Passages in my Author that give any Light to this Matter.

The ancient City of Troy stood at a greater Distance from the Sea than those Ruins which have since been shewn for it. This may be gather’d from Iliad 5. ℣. (of the Original) 791. where it is said that the Trojans never durst sally out of the Walls of their Town ’till the Retirement of Achilles, but afterwards combated the Grecians at their very Ships, far from the City. For had Troy stood (as Strabo observes) so nigh the Sea-shore, it had been Madness in the Greeks not to have built any Fortification before their Fleet till the tenth Year of the Siege, when the Enemy was so near them: And on the other hand, it had been Cowardice in the Trojans not to have attempted any thing all that time, against an Army that lay unfortify’d and unintrench’d. Besides the intermediate Space had been too small to afford a Field for so many various Adventures and Actions of War. The Places about Troy particularly mentioned by Homer lie in this Order.

IT seems, by the 465 th Verse of the second Iliad, that the Grecian Army was drawn up under the several Leaders by the Banks of Scamander on that side toward the Ships: In the mean time that of Troy and the Auxiliaries was rang’d in Order at Myrinne’s Sepulchre. Ibid.℣. 320 of the Catal. The Place of the First Battel where Diomed performs his Exploits, was near the joining of Simois and Scamander; for Juno and Pallas coming to him, alight at the Confluence of those Rivers. Il. 5. ℣. 776. and that the Greeks had not yet past the Stream, but fought on that side next the Fleet, appears from ℣. 791 of the same Book, where Juno says the Trojans now brave them at their very Ships. But in the beginning of the sixth Book, the Place of Battel is specify’d to be between the Rivers of Simois and Scamander; so that the Greeks(tho’ Homer does not particularize when, or in what manner) had then cross’d the Stream toward Troy. The Engagement in the eighth Book is evidently close to the Grecian Fortification on the Shore. That Night Hector lay at Ilus’s Tomb in the Field, as Dolon tells us Lib. 10. ℣. 415. And in the eleventh Book the Battel is chiefly about Ilus’s Tomb.

In the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth, about the Fortification of the Greeks, and in the fifteenth at the Ships. In the sixteenth, the Trojans being repulsed by Patroclus, they engage between the Fleet, the River, and the Grecian Wall: See ℣. 396. Patroclus still advancing they fight at the Gates of Troy℣. 700. In the seventeenth the Fight about the Body of Patroclus is under the Trojan Wall ℣. 403. His Body being carried off, Hector and Aeneas pursue the Greeks to the Fortification ℣. 760. And in the eighteenth, upon Achilles’s appearing, they retire and encamp without the Fortification.

In the twentieth, the Fight is still on that side next the Sea; for the Trojans being pursued by Achilles, pass over the Scamander as they run toward Troy: See the beginning of Book 21. The following Battels are either in the River itself, or between that and the City, under whose Walls Hector is kill’d in the twenty second Book, which puts an end to the Battels of the Iliad.