gether, and each made into a whole. It would really be to insult your understanding to argue in detail on such an absurd hypothesis. Unity of action is one of the great praises of Homer, especially in the Iliad. The fable is one complete plot, all the incidents tending to the same end. More than this, there is even a unity of character, and this is preserved religiously through each poem. We know, and almost anticipate (after we are acquainted with the characters) what Nestor, Achilles, or Ulysses will say upon any subject. Can such a poem then be the work of different persons without union or correspondence with each other? Can any thing in criticism itself be more absurd than such a supposition? But further still, there is even in Homer a uniformity of language and style. Every author has a vocabulary of his own, and Homer's is not extremely copious. The same words and phrases continually occur, and sometimes the same verses. Where are the breaks, the junctures? where is the hand of the compiler who put these fragments together discernible? who has discovered, or who can discover interpolation in Homer? That different portions of such large

poems might be dispersed in various hands throughout Greece, is very probable, from the difficulty at that period of obtaining transcripts of the whole. Many of these might be collected and collated in order to make the copy more complete. But both the Iliad and Odyssey bear every mark of proceeding from the same mind, and each was unquestionably from the first a perfect whole. What an age must it have been indeed to produce seven or eight poets, who could write like Homer? Why had we not as many Shakspeare's in the reign of Elizabeth?

The Iliad and Odyssey may be regarded as models for all epic writers. In taking a hasty view of the former of these poems, I would observe, that when we open the Iliad, we must prepare ourselves for a picture of the antient world; without this reflection we shall lose many of its beauties, which I obsérved consist in giving us a lively delineation or description of the early ages. In the days of Homer, for instance, the ordering of an entertainment was an action of importance; the greatest heroes were allowed to praise themselves, and to indulge in the most bitter invectives against their

enemies, neither consistent with the modern notions of politeness, or even decency. In the opening of the Iliad we find none of that dig nity we should now expect at the commencement of an epic poem. Two chiefs contend for a female captive, which to us appears a subject of small importance, yet this is the point upon which the whole action turns. The priest of Apollo demands his daughter, who had been given to Agamemnon, and upon his being compelled to resign her, he forces Briseis from Achilles, who on this account withdraws his troops from assisting the Greeks against the Trojans, and from his anger all the train of actions follow.

The subject of the Iliad is, however, well chosen; there was no object more splendid or of greater dignity than the war of Troy, at the period the poet wrote; for Homer lived about the second or third century after the Trojan war, when every thing was magnified by tradition. As there was at that time no regular record of public transactions, the real actions performed in these wars must have been in some degree obscured, so that the poet was allowed to con

nect them with what fables he pleased, if they did not contradict the tradition. He has not, however, chosen the whole war for his subject, but only one of the latter scenes, and indeed the most important of the whole.

All the different incidents are disposed in the most regular manner, and Achilles, the principal hero, is never out of our view through the whole. Homer excels all poets in characteristic expression; that which Virgil expresses in a short sentence, furnishes Homer with matter for a long conversation. He is dramatic throughout, and this mode of expressing himself has great advantages, for undoubtedly to set the person before our eyes will make a stronger impression upon the reader than the simple recital of facts by the poet. All his characters, as I before observed, are strongly marked. No two of his heroes act or speak alike. Even Priam and Paris are characters. The female personages have their peculiar features. The picture of Helen is finely drawn in his third book; the poet takes care she shall never appear odious, still blending some virtues with her vices: she is a character which,

though we must condemn, we cannot hate; and yet she is nicely contrasted with the chaste and amiable Andromache.

The machinery of Homer is perhaps the most defective part of his poems; but this was not his fault, but that of the puerile mythology which he was obliged to follow. His gods are mere men, and hardly so respectable as his heroes.

On the Odyssey I differ from the majority of critics, for it seems to me to possess more genius than the Iliad. That imagination must have been most fertile that could invent such a story, and carry it through the various incidents with such consummate art and address. The adventures of Ulysses among the Sirens, the Cyclops, and in the islands of Circe, are more entertaining than any romance that ever was penned. The Odyssey has also more domestic incident than the Hliad: it presents us with more pleasing and more exact pictures of the antient manners. Eumeus, for instance, is a character beloved by every reader; and the natural incident of the old and faithful dog must touch every heart. Perhaps the latter parts are tedious and languid: Ulysses seems to remain