Lost was the nation's sense, nor could be found, |Before her, fancy's gilded clouds decay, The vapour mild o'er each committee crept ; See skulking truth to her old cavern fled, Till drown'd was sense, and shame, and right, and Physic of metaphysic begs defence, And metaphysic calls for aid on sense! In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. Nor public flame, nor private dares to shine; REMARKS. 640 650 Implying a great desire so to do, as the learned scholiast on the place rightly observes. Therefore, beware, reader, lest thou take this gape for a yawn, which is attended with no desire but to go to rest, by no means the disposition of the convocation; whose melancholy case in short is this: she was, as is reported, infected with the general influence of the goddess: and while she was yawning carelessly at her ease, soareth again to the skies. As prophecy hath ever been one a wanton courtier took her at advantage, and in the very of the chief provinces of poesy, our poet here foretels from nick clapped a gag into her chops. Well, therefore, may we what we feel, what we are to fear; and, in the style of other know her meaning by her gaping; and this distressful posture our poet here describes, just as she stands at this day, prophets, hath used the future tense for the preterit; since sad example of the effects of Dulness and Malice, uncheck what he says shall be, is already to be seen in the writings ed and despised. of some even of our most adored authors, in divinity, phr deed, to be named in such company. losophy, physics, metaphysics, &c. who are too good, in Bentl a Ver. 615, 618. These verses were written many years ago, and may be found in the state poems of that time. So that Scriblerus is mistaken, or whoever else have imagined this poem of a fresher date. Ver. 620. Wits have short memories,)] This seems to be the reason why the poets, when they give us a catalogue, constantly call for help on the muses, who, as the daughters of memory, are obliged not to forget any thing. So Homer, Iliad B. II. Πλήθων δ' ουκ αν εγω μυθησομαι ουδ' ονομήνω, And Virgil, Æn. VII. Et meministis enim, diva, et memorare potestis: But our poet had yet another reason for putting this task Night and Chaos, here represented as advancing to extmIbid. The sable throne behold] The sable thrones of guish the light of the sciences, in the first place blot out the colours of fancy, and damp the fire of wit, before they pro ceed to their work. Ver. 649. Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires.] Blushing as well at the memory of the past overflow of Dulness, when the barbarous learning of so many ages was wholly employed in corrupting the simplicity, and defiling the purity of religion, as at the view of these her false supports in the present; of which it would be endless to recount the particulars. However, amidst the extinction of all other lights, she is said only to withdraw hers! as hers alone in Scribl. its own nature is unextinguishable and eternal. Ver. 624. The venal quiet, and, &c.] It were a problem Ver. 650. And unawares morality expires.] It appears worthy the solution of Mr. Ralph and his patron, who had from hence that our poet was of very different sentiments lights that we know nothing of, which required the greatest from the author of the Characteristics, who has written a effort of our goddess's power-to entrance the dull, or to formal treatise on virtue, to prove it not only real, but duraquiet the venal. For though the venal may be more unruly ble without the support of religon. The word Unawares than the dull, yet, on the other hand, it demands a much alludes to the confidence of those men, who suppose that greater expense of her virtue to entrance than barely to morality would flourish best without it, and consequently to quiet. Scribl. the surprise such would be in (if any such there are) who, indeed, love virtue, and yet do all they can to root out the religion of their country. Ver. 629. She comes! she comes! &c.] Here the muse, like Jove's eagle, after a sudden stoop at ignoble game, THE ILIAD OF HOMER, TRANSLATED BY ALEXANDER POPE, ESQ., PREFACE. HOMER is universally allowed to have had the are not coldly informed of what was said or done as greatest invention of any writer whatever. The from a third person; the reader is hurried out of praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested with himself by the force of the poet's imagination, and him, and others may have their pretensions as to par- turns in one place to a hearer, in another to a specticular excellences; but his invention remains yet tator. The course of his verses resembles that of the unrivalled. Nor is it a wonder if he has ever been army he describes, acknowledged the greatest of poets, who most excelled in that, which is the very foundation of poetry. Οι δ' αρ'ισαν, ώσει τε πυρί χθων πασα νέμοιτο, It is the invention that in different degrees distin-They pour along like a fire that sweeps the whole guishes all great geniuses: the utmost stretch of earth before it.' It is, however, remarkable that his human study, learning, and industry, which masters fancy which is every where vigorous, is not discoevery thing besides, can never attain to this. It fur-vered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its nishes Art with all her materials, and without it Judg-fullest splendour: it grows in the progress both upon ment itself can at best but steal wisely: for Art is himself and others, and becomes on fire, like a chaonly like a prudent steward, that lives on managing riot-wheel, by its own rapidity. Exact disposition, the riches of Nature. Whatever praises may be just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers, given to works of judgment, there is not even a single may have been found in a thousand; but this poetic beauty in them to which the invention must not con- fire, this 'vivida vis animi,' in a very few. Even in tribute: as in the most regular gardens, Art can only works where all those are imperfect or neglected, reduce the beauties of Nature to more regularity, and this can overpower criticism, and make us admire such a figure, which the common eye may bet-even while we disapprove. Nay, where this appears, ter take in, and is therefore more entertained with. though attended with absurdities, it brightens all the And perhaps the reason why common critics are in-rubbish about it, till we see nothing but its own splenclined to prefer a judicious and methodical genius to dour. This fire is discerned in Virgil, but discerned a great and fruitful one, is, because they find it easier as through a glass, reflected from Homer, more shifor themselves to pursue their observations through ning than fierce, but every where equal and constant: an uniform and bounded walk of Art, than to com- in Lucian and Statius it bursts out in sudden, short, prehend the vast and various extent of Nature. and interrupted flashes: in Milton it glows like a Our author's work is a wild Paradise, where, if we furnace kept up to an uncommon ardour by the force cannot see all the beauties so distinctly as in an or- of art: in Shakspeare, it strikes before we are aware, dered garden, it is only because the number of them like an accidental fire from heaven; but in Homer, is infinitely greater. It is like a copious nursery, and in him only, it burns every where clearly, and which contains the seeds and first productions of every where irresistibly. every kind, out of which those who followed him I shall here endeavour to show how this vast inhave but selected some particular plants, each accor-vention exerts itself in a manner superior to that of cording to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If any poet, through all the main constituent parts of some things are too luxuriant, it is owing to the rich his work, as it is the great and peculiar characteristic ness of the soil; and if others are not arrived to per- which distinguishes him from all other authors. fection or maturity, it is only because they are over- This strong and ruling faculty was like a powerful run and oppressed by those of a stronger nature. star, which, in the violence of its course, drew all It is to the strength of this amazing invention we things within its vortex. It seemed not enough to are to attribute that unequalled fire and rapture which have taken in the whole circle of arts, and the whole is so forcible in Homer, that no man of a true poetical compass of nature, to supply his maxims and reflecspirit is master of himself while he reads him. What tions: all the inward passions and affections of manhe writes, is of the most animated nature imaginable; kind, to furnish his characters; and all the outward every thing moves, every thing lives, and is put in forms and images of things for his descriptions; but action. If a council be called, or a battle fought, you wanting yet an ampler sphere to expatiate in, he 2 D 209 opened a new and boundless walk for his imagination, the things they shadowed! This is a field in which and created a world for himself in the invention of no succeeding poets could dispute with Homer; and fable. That which Aristotle calls 'the soul of poetry,' whatever commendations have been allowed them on was first breathed into it by Homer. I shall begin with this head, are by no means for their invention in havconsidering him in this part, as it is naturally the first; ing enlarged his circle, but for their judgment in and I speak of it both as it means the design of a having contracted it. For when the mode of learning poem, as it is taken for fiction. changed in following ages, and science was delivered Fable may y be divided into the Probable, the Allegori- in a plainer manner, it then became as reasonable in cal, and the Marvellous. The Probable Fable is the the more modern poets to lay it aside, as it was in recital of such actions as, though they did not happen, Homer to make use of it. And perhaps it was no yet might in the common course of nature; or of unhappy circumstance for Virgil, that there was not such as though they did, become fables by the addi- in his time that demand upon him of so great an intional episodes and manner of telling them. Of this vention, as might be capable of furnishing all those sort is the main story of an Epic poem, the return of allegorical parts of a poem. Ulysses, the settlement of the Trojans in Italy, or the The Marvellous Fable includes whatever is superlike. That of the Iliad is the anger of Achilles, the natural, and especially the machines of the gods. He most short and single subject that ever was chosen seems the first who brought them into a system of by any poet. Yet this he has supplied with a vaster machinery for poetry, and such a one as makes its variety of incidents and events, and crowded with a greatest importance and dignity. For we find those greater number of councils, speeches, battles, and authors who have been offended at the literal notion episodes of all kinds, than are to be found even in of the gods, constantly laying their accusation against those poems whose schemes are of the utmost lati- Homer as the chief support of it. But whatever tude and irregularity. The action is hurried on with cause there might be to blame his machines in a phithe most vehement spirit, and its whole duration em- losophical or religious. view, they are so perfect in ploys not so much as fifty days. Virgil, for want the poetic, that mankind have been ever since conof so warm a genius, aided himself by taking in a more tented to follow them; none have been able to enextensive subject, as well as a greater length of time, large the sphere of poetry beyond the limits he has and contracting the design of both Homer's poems set: every attempt of this nature has proved unsucinto one, which is yet but a fourth part as large as his. cessful: and after all the various changes of times The other Epic poets have used the same practice, and religions, his gods continue to this day the gods but generally carried it so far as to superinduce a mul- of poetry. tiplicity of fables, destroy the unity of action, and lose We come now to the characters of his persons; their readers in an unreasonable length of time. Nor and here we shall find no author has ever drawn so is it only in the main design that they have been un-many, with so visible and surprising a variety, or able to add to his invention, but they have followed given us such lively and affecting impressions of them. him in every episode and part of the story. If he Every one has something so singularly his own, that no has given a regular catalogue of an army, they all painter could have distinguished them more by their draw up their forces in the same order. If he has features than the poet has by their manners. Nothing funeral games for Patroclus, Virgil has the same for can be more exact than the distinctions he has obserAnchisis; and Statius (rather than omit them) de-ved in the different degrees of virtues and vices. The stroys the unity of his action for those of Archemorus. single quality of courage is wonderfully diversified If Ulysses visit the shades, the Æneas of Virgil, and in the several characters of the Iliad. That of AchilScipio of Sillus, are sent after him. If he be detained les is furious and untractable; that of Diomede forfrom his return by the allurements of Calypso, so is ward, yet listening to advice and subject to command; Eneas by Dido, and Rinaldo by Armida. If Achil- that of Ajax is heavy, and self-confiding; of Hector, les be absent from the army on the score of a quar-active and vigilant: the courage of Agamemnon is rel through half the poem, Rinaldo must absent him- inspirited by love of empire and ambition; that of self just as long on the like account. If he gives his Menelaus mixed with softness and tenderness for hero a suit of celestial armour, Virgil and Tasso his people: we find in Idomenus a plain direct solmake the same present to theirs. Virgil has not only dier; in Sarpedon a gallant and generous one. No observed this close imitation of Homer, but, where he is this judicious and astonishing diversity to be found had not led the way, supplied the want from other only in the principal quality which constitutes the Greek authors. Thus the story of Simon and the main of each character, but even in the under part of taking of Troy was copied (says Macrobius) almost it, to which he takes care to give a tincture of that word for word from Pisander, as the loves of Dido principal one. For example, the main characters of and Æneas are taken from those of Medea and Ja-Ulysses and Nestor consist in wisdom; and they are son in Apollonius, and several others in the same distinct in this, that the wisdom of one is artificial and various; of the other, natural, open, and regular. But To proceed to the Allegorical Fable: if we reflect they have, besides, characters of courage, and this upon those innumerable knowledges, those secrets of quality also takes a different turn in each from the difnature and physical philosophy, which Homer is gen-ference of his prudence: for one in the war depends erally supposed to have wrapped up in his allegories, still upon caution, the other upon experience. It what a new and ample scene of wonder may this would be endless to produce instances of these kinds consideration afford us! how fertile will that imagi- The characters of Virgil are far from striking us in nation appear, which was able to clothe all the pro- this open manner; they lie in a great degree hidden perties of elements, the qualifications of the mind, the and undistinguished, and where they are marked most virtues and vices, in forms and persons; and to in- evidently, affect us not in proportion to those of Hotroduce them into actions agreeable to the nature of mer. His characters of valour are much alike: even manner. that of Turnus seems no way peculiar, but as it is in greatness, horror and confusion. It is certain there a superior degree; and we see nothing that differen-is not near that number of images and descriptions in ces the courage of Mnesthus from that of Sergesthus, any Epic poet; though every one has assisted himCloanthus, or the rest. In like manner it may be re-self with a great quantity out of him: and it is evident marked of Statius's heroes, that an air of impetuosity of Virgil especially, that he has scarce any compariruns through them all; the same horrid and savage sons which are not drawn from his master. courage appears in his Capaneus, Tydeus, Hippome- If we descend from hence to the expression, we see don, &c. They have a parity of character, which the bright imagination of Homer shining out in the makes them seem brothers of one family. I believe most enlivened forms of it. We acknowledge him the when the reader is led into this track of reflection, if father of poetical diction, the first who taught that lanhe 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. guage 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 imaginaThe speeches are to be considered as they flow from ble, and touched with the greatest spirit. Aristotle had the characters, being perfect or defective as they reason to say, He was the only poet who had found agree or disagree with the manners of those who ut-out living words; there are in him more daring figures er them. As there is more variety of characters in and metaphors than in any good author whatever he Iliad, so there is of speeches, than in any other An arrow is impatient to be on the wing, a weapon poem. Every thing in it has manners (as Aristotle thirsts to drink the blood of an enemy, and the like. expresses it ;) that is, every thing is acted or spoken. Yet his expression is never too big for the sense, but It is hardly credible in a work of such length, how justly great in proportion to it. It is the sentiment small a number of lines are employed in narration. that swells and fills out the diction, which rises with In Virgil, the dramatic part is less in proportion to it, and forms itself about it: for in the same degree the narrative; and the speeches often consist of gen- that a thought is warmer, an expression will be brighteral reflections or thoughts which might be equally er; as that is more strong, this will become more just in any person's mouth upon the same occasion. perspicuous: like glass in the furnace, which grows As many of his persons have no apparent characters, to a greater magnitude and refines to a greater clearso many of his speeches escape being applied and ness, only as the breath within is more powerful, and judged by the rules of propriety. We oftener think the heat more intense. of the author himself when we read Virgil, than when we are engaged in Homer: all which are the effects of a colder invention, that interests us less in the action described: Homer makes us hearers, and Virgil leaves us readers. 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 heightened the diction, but as it assisted and filled the numbers with greater sound and pomp, If in the next place we take a view of the senti- and likewise conduced in some measure to thicken ments, the same presiding faculty is eminent in the the images. On this last consideration I cannot but sublimity and spirit of his thoughts. Longinus has attribute these also to the fruitfulness of his invention, given his opinion, that it was in this part Homer prin- since (as he has managed them) they are a sort of cipally excelled. What were alone sufficient to supernumerary pictures of the persons or things prove the grandeur and excellence of his sentiments to which they are joined. We see the motion of in general, is, that they have so remarkable a parity with Hector's plumes in the epithet opv6xxs, the landthose of the Scripture: Dupori, in his Gnomologia scape of Mount Neritus in, that of, and so Homerica, has collected innumerable instances of of others; which particular images could not have this sort. And it is with justice an excellent modern been insisted upon so long as to express them in a writer allows, that if Virgil has not so many thoughts description (though but of a single line) without dithat are low and vulgar, he has not so many that are verting the reader too much from the principal action sublime and noble; and that the Roman, author sel- or figure. As a metaphor is a short simile, one of dom rises into very astonishing sentiments, where he these epithets is a short description. is not fired by the Iliad.. Lastly, if we consider his versification, we shall be If we observe his descriptions, images, and similes, sensible what a share of praise is due to his invention we shall find the invention still predominant. To in that. He was not satisfied with his language as he what else can we ascribe that vast comprehension of found it settled in any one part of Greece, but search images of every sort, where we see each circumstance ed through its different dialects with this particular of art, and individual of nature, summoned together, view, to beautify and perfect his numbers: he considby the extent and fecundity of his imagination; to ered these as they had a greater mixture of vowels or which all things, in their various views, presented consonants, and accordingly employed them as the themselves in an instant, and had their impressions verse required a greater smoothness or strength. ' taken off to perfection, at a heat? Nay, he not only What he most affected was the Ionic, which has a gives the full prospects of things, but several unexpect- peculiar sweetness from its never using contractions, ed peculiarities and side-views, unobserved by any and from its custom of resolving the diphthongs into painter but Homer. Nothing is so surprising as the two syllables, so as to make the words open themdescriptions of his battles, which take up no less than selves with a more spreading and sonorous fluency half the Iliad, and are supplied with so vast a variety With this he mingled the Attic contractions, the of incidents, that no one bears a likeness to another; broader Doric, and the feebler Æolic, which often such different kinds of deaths, that no two heroes are rejects its aspirate, or takes off its accent; and comwounded in the same manner; and such a profusion pleted this variety by altering some letters with the of noble ideas, that every battle rises above the last in license of poetry. Thus his measures, instead of being fetters to his sense, were always in readiness to the greatest genius, Virgil the better artist. In one run along with the warmth of his rapture, and even we most admire the man, in the other the work: Ho to give a farther representation of his notions, in the mer hurries and transports us with a commanding correspondence of their sounds to what they signified. impetuosity, Virgil leads us with attractive majesty Out of all these he had derived that harmony, which Homer scatters with a generous profusion, Virgil makes us confess he had not only the richest head, bestows with a careful magnificence: Homer. like the but the finest ear in the world This is so great a Nile, pours out his riches with a boundless overflow truth, that whoever will but consult the tune of his Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a gentle and verses, even without understanding them (with the constant stream. When we behold their battles, mesame sort of diligence as we daily see practised in thinks the two poets resemble the heroes they cele the case of Italian operas,) will find more sweetness, brate: Homer, boundless and irresistible as Achilles, variety, and majesty of sound, than in any other lan- bears all before him, and shines more and more as guage or poetry. The beauty of his numbers is al- the tumult increases: Virgil, calmly daring like Ænelowed by the critics to be copied but faintly by Virgil as, appears undisturbed in the midst of the action; himself, though they are so just to ascribe it to the disposes all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. nature of the Latin tongue: indeed the Greek has And when we look upon their machines, Homer some advantages, both from the natural sound of its seems like his own Jupiter in his terrors shaking words, and the turn and cadence of its verse, which Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the agree with the genius of no other language. Virgil heavens; Virgil, like the same power in his benevowas very sensible of this, and used the utmost dili- lence, counselling with the gods, laying plans for emgence in working up a more intractable language to pires, and regularly ordering his whole creation. whatsoever graces it was capable of; and in particu-| But after all, it is with great parts as with great virlar, never failed to bring the sound of his line to a tues, they naturally border on some imperfection; beautiful agreement with its sense. If the Grecian and it is often hard to distinguish exactly where the poet has not been so frequently celebrated on this ac- virtue ends, or the fault begins. As prudence may count as the Roman, the only reason is, that fewer sometimes sink to suspicion, so may a great judgment critics have understood one language than the other. decline to coldness; and as magnanimity may run Dionysius of Halicarnassus has pointed out many of up to profusion or extravagance, so may a great inour author's beauties in this kind, as his treatise of the vention to redundancy or wildness. If we look upon Composition of Words. It suffices at present to ob- Homer in this view, we shall perceive the chief observe of his numbers, that they flow with so much jections against him to proceed from so noble a cause ease, as to make one imagine Homer had no other as the excess of this faculty.. care than to transcribe as fast as the muses dictated: Among these we may reckon some of his Marveland at the same time with so much force and inspirit-lous Fictions, upon which so much criticism has ing vigour, that they awaken and raise us like the been spent, as surpassing all the bounds of probabilisound of a trumpet. They roll along as a plentiful ty. Perhaps it may be with great and superior souls river, always in motion, and always full; while we as with gigantic bodies, which, exerting themselves are borne away by a tide of verse, the most rapid, with unusual strength, exceed what is commonly and yet the most smooth imaginable. thought the due proportion of parts, to become Thus on whatever side we contemplate Homer, what miracles in the whole; and, like the old heroes principally strikes us is his invention. It is that which of that make, commit something near extravagance, forms the character of each part of his work; and ac- amidst a series of glorious and inimitable performcordingly we find it to have made his fable more ex- ances. Thus Homer has his speaking horses, and tensive and copious than any other, his manners more Virgil his myrtles distilling blood, where the latter lively and strongly marked, his speeches more affect- has not so much as contrived the easy intervention ting and transported, his sentiments more warm and of a Deity to save the probability. sublime, his images and descriptions more full and It is owing to the same vast invention, that his sianimated, his expression more raised and daring, and miles have been thought too exuberant and full of cirhis numbers more rapid and various. I hope, in what cumstances. The force of this faculty is seen in nohas been said of Virgil, with regard to any of these thing more, than its inability to confine itself to that heads, I have no way derogated from his character. single circumstance upon which the comparison is Nothing is more absurd or endless, than the common grounded; it runs out into embellishments of addimethod of comparing eminent writers by an oppositional images, which, however, are so managed as tion of particular passages in them, and forming a not to overpower the main one. His similes are like judgment from thence of their merit upon the whole. pictures, where the principal figure has not only its We ought to have a certain knowledge of the princi- proportion given agreeable the original, but is also pal character and distinguished excellence of each: set off with occasional ornaments and prospects. it is in that we are to consider him, and in proportion The same will account for his manner of heaping a to his degree in that we are to admire him. No au- number of comparisons together in one breath, when thor or man ever excelled all the world in more than his fancy suggested to him at once so many various one faculty; and as Homer has done this in invention, and correspondent images. The reader will easily Virgil has in judgment. Not that we are to think extend this observation to more objections of the Homer wanted judgment, because Virgil had it in a same kind. more eminent degree; or that Virgil wanted inven- If there are others which seem rather to charge him tion, because Homer possessed a larger share of it: with a defect or narrowness of genius, than an excess each of these great authors had more of both than of it, those seeming defects will be found upon examperhaps any man besides, and are only said to have ination to proceed whoily from the nature of the times less in comparison with one another. Homer was he lived in. Such are his grosser representations of |