Kind, which have fucceeded in different Ages, and in different Countries.

'Tis not enough to be acquainted with Virgil, and Homer: As in regard to Tragedy, a Man who has only perufed Sophocles and Euripides, could not have an entire Notion of the Stage. We should be their Admirers, not their Slaves. We do not fpeak the fame Language. Our Religion (the great Bafis of Epick Poetry) is the very Reverse of their Mythology Our Battles, our Sieges, our Fleets, are more different from theirs, than our Manners from thofe of America. The Invention of Gun-powder, that of the Compafs, that of Printing, fo many Arts befides newly emerged into the World, have altered the Face of the Univerfe; and an Epick Poet, being furrounded with fo many Novelties, muft have but a fmall fhare of Genius, if he durft not be new himself.

We fend our Children to travel into neighbouring Countries, after they have read Virgil and Homer at School. Should their Time be ill employ'd in getting a thorough Knowledge of Milton in England, or of Tafo in Italy? Where are Monuments to be found, which better deferve the Obfervation of a Traveller?

Our

Our juft Refpect for the Antients, proves a meer Superftition, if it betrays us into a rash Contempt of our Neighbours and Countrymen. We ought not to do fuch an Injury to Nature, as to fhut our Eyes to all the Beauties that her Hands pour around us, in order to look back fixedly on her former Productions.

'Tis a pleasure, no doubt, and a great Improvement of our Mind, to furvey all the Epick Writers in their respective Countries, from Homer down to Milton, and to obferve the different Features, and the various Dreffes of those great Men.

"Tis a Task beyond the reach of my Capacity, to give a full profpect of them. I fhall but faintly touch the firft Lines of their Pictures; fome abler Hand will add the finishing Strokes to this imperfect Drawing.

The judicious Reader will fupply the Defects, and inforce the feeble Hints he will find in this Effay. My part is to propofe, his to judge; and his Judgment will be right, if he attends without partiality, laying afide the Prejudices of the School, or the over-bearing Love of the Productions of his own. Country.

He will mark the Progreffes, the Sinking of the Art, its Rifing again, and purfue it through its various Changes. He

will

will diftinguish the Beauties, and the Faults which are fuch, every where, and in all Ages, from thofe doubtful Things which are called Blemishes by one Nation, and ftiled Perfections by another.

He will not be tyrannized by Ariftotle, Caftelvetro, Dacier, Le Boffu; but he will extract his own Rules from the various Examples he fhall have before his Eyes, and governed by his good Senfe alone, be a Judge between the Gods of Homer, and the God of Milton, and between Calipfo, Dido, Armida, and Eve.

But if the Reader be fo juft, as to make Allowances for the Time, in which thofe different Authors have writ, it is to be hoped, he will look with fome Indulgence on the Diction of this Effay, and pardon the Failings of one who has learned English but this Year, of one who has drawn most of his Obfervations from Books written in England, and who pays to this Country but part of what he owes to her. A Nurfe is not difpleased with the ftammering Articulations of a Child, who delivers to her with much ado his first undigefted Thoughts.

HOME R:

would feem too affuming, and prove very ufelefs, to expatiate upon Homer and Virgil, efpecially in England, where there is fcarce a Gentleman unacquainted with Latin and Greek.

As to Homer, thofe who cannot read him in the Original, have Mr. Pope's Tranflation; they may difcern the Fire of that Father of Poetry, reflected from fuch a'polifh'd and faithful Glafs. I will neither point out his Beauties, fince none of them are loft in the Tranflation; nor cavil at his Faults, which are for the most part leffen'd or embellish'd.

Let every Reader confult himself, when he reads Homer, and reflect how that Poem works upon his Mind; then he will judge if Homer hath reach'd to the utmost pitch of the Art, in any thing elfe but in that predominant Force of Painting, which makes his peculiar Character.

Notwithstanding the Veneration due, and paid to Homer, it is very ftrange, yet true, that among the moft Learned, and the greatest Admirers of Antiquity, there is fcarce one to be found, who ever read the Iliad with that Eagernefs and Rapture, which a Woman feels when the reads the Novel

of

of Zaïda and as to the common Mafs of Readers, lefs converfant with Letters, but not perhaps endowed with a lefs fhare of Judgment and Wit, few have been able to go through the whole Iliad, without ftruggling against a fecret Diflike, and fome have thrown it afide after the fourth or the fifth Book. How does it come to pafs, that Homer hath fo many Admirers, and fo few Readers? And is at the fame time worfhipped and neglected?

I'll endeavour to give fome Reasons for this Paradox. The common part of Mankind is awed with the Fame of Homer, rather than ftruck with his Beauties. The judicious Reader is pleased, no doubt, with the noble Imagination of that great Author; but very few have Command enough over their own Prejudices, and can tranfport themselves far enough into fuch a remote Antiquity, as to become the Contemporaries of Homer when they read him: Good Sense bids them to make allowances for the Manners of his Time, but 'tis almoft impoffible to bring themfelves to a quick Relifh of them. The Rays of his Light tranfmitted to their Eyes through fo long a Way, afford them but a feeble glimmering Twilight, and no Warmth. They are like the old Counsellors of D

Priam,