A striking and venerable portrait! The divine old man is represented here with suitable dignity. In the Anthologia, is a description of a statue of Homer, which, from its antiquity, and the minute enumeration of the features and attitudes of the figure, is curious and entertaining: -Πατηρ δ'εμος, ισοθεος φως, Ιςατο θειος Όμηρος, είκτο μεν ανδρι νοήσαι Γηραλέω, το δε γερας την γλυκυ τετο γαρ αυτῷ 12. The wars of Troy were round the pillar seen : Bold was the work, and prov'd the master's fire.t A The Poems of Homer afford a marvellous variety of subjects proper for history-painting. very ingenious French nobleman, the Count de Caylus, has lately printed a valuable treatise, entituled, * Antholog. ad calcem Callimachi. Edit. Lond. 1741. p. 88. + Ver. 188. tituled, "Tableaux tirés de L'Iliade, et de L'Odysse d'Homere;" in which he has exhibited the whole series of events contained in these poems, arranged in their proper order; has designed each piece, and disposed each figure, with much taste and judgment. He seems justly to wonder, that artists have so seldom had recourse to this great storehouse of beautiful and noble images, so proper for the employment of their pencils, and delivered with so much force and distinctness, that the painter has nothing to do, but to substitute his colours for the words of Homer. He complains that a Raphael, and a Julio Romano, should copy the crude and unnatural conceptions of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and Apuleius's Ass; and that some of their sacred subjects were ill chosen. Among the few who borrowed their subjects from Homer, he mentions Bouchardon with the honour he deserves; and relates the following anecdote : "This great artist having lately read Homer in an old and detestable French translation, came one day to me, his eyes sparkling with fire, and said, Since I have read this book, men seem to be be fifteen feet high, and all nature is enlarged in my sight."* 13. A strong expression most he seem'd t' affect, And here and there disclos'd a brave neglect. In the sublime, as in great affluence of fortune, some minute and unimportant articles will unavoidably escape observation. But it is almost impossible for a low and groveling genius to be guilty of error, since he never endangers himself by soaring on high, or aiming at eminence; but still goes on in the same quiet, uniform, secure track, whilst its very height and grandeur exposes the sublime to sudden falls. "Notwithstanding which trivial blemishes, I must ever remain in the opinion, that these greater excellencies, these bolder and nobler flights, though, perhaps, not carried on every where with an equality of perfection, yet merit the prize and preference, by the sole merit of their intrinsic magnificence and grandeur." This just and forcible sentiment of Longinus, in his 33d Section, is a sufficient answer to an outrageous paradox lately * Pag. 227. lately advanced by Voltaire, in direct contradiction to his * former critical opinions; and which is here set down for the entertainment of the reader: "If we would weigh, without prejudice, the Odyssey of Homer with the Orlando of Ariosto, the Italian must gain the preference in all respects. Both of them are chargeable with the same fault, namely, an intemperance and luxuriance of imagination, and a romantic fondness of the marvellous. But Ariosto has compensated this fault by allegories so true, by touches of satire so delicate, by so profound a knowledge of the human heart, by the graces of the comic, which perpetually succeed the strokes of the terrible, in short, by such innumerable beauties of every kind, that he has found out the secret of making an agreeable monster. Let every reader ask himself what he would think, if he should read, for the first time, the Iliad, *The word former is used, because it is remarkable, that when Voltaire wrote his Essay on the Epic Poets, he not only spoke rather contemptuously of the Italian Poets, but even totally omitted Ariosto, for which omission he was immediately attacked by Rolli, the Italian translator of Milton; and particularly for saying, that Tasso's chief fault was, having too much of Ariosto in him. Iliad, and Tasso's poem, without knowing the names of their authors, and the times when their works were composed, and determine of them merely by the degree of pleasure they each of them excited: would he not give the entire preference to Tasso? Would he not find in the Italian more conduct and œconomy, more interesting circumstances, more variety and exactness, more graces and embellishments, and more of that softness which eases, relieves, and adds a lustre to, the sublime? I question whether they will even bear a comparison a few ages hence."* 14. A golden column next in sight appear'd, *Collection complette des Œuvres de M. de Voltaire, Tom. XIII. a Geneve, pag. 46. † Ver. 196. |