fingle beauty in them, to which the Invention must not contribute. As in the most regular gardens, Art can only reduce the beauties of Nature to more regularity, and fuch a figure, which the common eye may better take in, and is therefore more entertained with. And perhaps the reason why common Critics are inclined to prefer a judicious and methodical genius to a great and fruitful one, is, because they find it easier for themfelves to pursue their obfervations through an uniform and bounded walk of Art, than to comprehend the vaft and various extent of Nature. Our Author's work is a wild paradise *, where if we cannot fee all the beauties fo diftinctly as in an ordered garden, it is only because the number of them is infinitely greater. 'Tis like a copious nurfery which contains the feeds and first productions of every kind, out of which thofe who followed him have but selected fome particular plants, each according to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If fome * Thefe words feem to imply that the Iliad is deficient in point of regularity and conduct of the Fable. Whereas one of its moft tranfcendent and unparalleled excellencies is the coherence, the confiftency, the fimplicity, and the perfpicuity of its plan; all which qualities are the refult of judgment as well as of invention; and all which the best critics, from Ariftotle to Clarke, have joined in admiring and applauding. Let Quintilian fpeak for all the reft; in difpofitione totius operis nonne humani generis modum exceffit? And he excels Virgil as much in judgment as invention; and in exact difpofition, just thought, correct elocution, and polifked numbers, as in poetical fire. Mad. Dacier was vehemently angry at Mr. Pope for this paragraph. In fact, we do fee the beauties of this well-ordered garden; which is not a mere nursery; its plants are not too luxuriant, and are arrived to perfection and maturity. fome things are too luxuriant, it is owing to the richness of the foil; and if others are not arrived to perfection or maturity, it is only because they are over-run and oppreft by those of a stronger nature. It is to the strength of this amazing Invention we are to attribute that unequalled fire and rapture, which is fo forcible in Homer, that no man of a true poetical fpirit is mafter of himfelf 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 called, or a battle fought, you are not coldly informed of what was faid or done as from a third perfon; the reader is hurried out of himself by the force of the Poet's imagination, and turns in one place to a hearer, in another to a fpectator. The course of his verses resembles that of the army he defcribes, Οἱ δ ̓ ἂρ ἴσαν, ωσεί τε πυρὶ χθών πᾶσα νέμοιτο. They pour along like a fire that fweeps the whole earth before it. 'Tis however remarkable, that his fancy, which is every where vigorous, is not difcovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its fullest fplendor: it grows in the progrefs both upon himfelf and others, and becomes on fire like a chariotwheel, by its own rapidity. Exact difposition, just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers, may have been found in a thoufand; but this poetical fire, this Vivida vis animi, in a very few. Even in works where where all thofe are imperfect or neglected, this can over-power criticifm, and make us admire even while we difapprove. Nay, where this appears, though attended with abfurdities, it brightens all the rubbish about it, till we see nothing but its own splendor. This Fire is difcerned in Virgil, but difcerned as through a glafs, reflected from Homer, more shining than fierce, but every where equal and conftant: in Lucan and Statius, it burst out in fudden, short, and interrupted flashes in Milton it glows like a fur nace Of all paffages in our Author's Works, I most wish he had never written this taftelefs and unjust comparifon. But indeed he never speaks of our divine Bard, con amore. This has lately been done by Mr. Hayley, in his curious and animated Life of Milton. I do not honour Sir John Denham fo much for his writing Cooper's Hill, as I do for being the very first person that spoke highly of Paradife Loft; who coming one day into the House of Commons with a proof fheet of this Poem, wet from the prefs, and being asked what paper he held in his hand, replied, “It was part of the noblest poem that was ever written in any language, or in any age." "Milton," fays Warburton, with his ufual love of bringing every thing into fyftem, "found Homer poffefed of the province of Morality; Virgil of Politics; and nothing left for him, but that of Religion. This he fcized, as afpiring to fhare with them in the government of the poetic world; and by means of the fuperior dignity of his fubject, hath gotten to the head of that triumvirate, which took fo many ages in forming. Thefe are the three fpecies of the Epic Poem; for its largeft fphere is human action, which can be confidered but in a MORAL, POLITICAL, or RELIGIOUS View; and these the three makers; for each of their poems was struck at a heat, and came to perfection from its first essay. Here then the grand fcene was clofed, and all farther improvements of the Epic at an end." A cruel fentence indeed, and a very fevere statute of Limitation! ! nace kept up to an uncommon ardor by the force of art: in Shakespeare, 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 vaft Invention exerts itself in a manner fuperior to that of any poet, through all the main constituent parts † of his work, Limitation! enough, if it had any foundation, to destroy every future attempt of any exalted genius that might arife. But, in truth, the assertion is totally groundless and chimerical. Each of the three poets might change the stations here affigned to them. Homer might affume to himself the province of politics; Virgil of morality; and Milton of both; who is also a strong proof that human action is not the largest sphere of Epic Poetry. But of all Dr. Warburton's forced and fanciful interpretations, next to his extraordinary interpretation of the Sixth Book of the Æneid, is the suppofition, that Virgil, by the episode of Nifus and Euryalus, meant to recommend the Grecian inftitution of the Band of Lovers and Friends that fought at each other's fides: and, alfo, that by the behaviour and death of Amata, and her celebration of the Bacchic Rites in the Seventh Book, Virgil meant to profcribe and expofe the abominable abuses that had crept into the mysteries. I lament that Mr. Gibbon, in his able confutation of the notion of Augustus's Initiation, has not touched on this topic. + Convinced that this Tranflation is the moft fpirited and the best ever given of any ancient Poet, and most suited to modern times and readers; yet I have always been of opinion, that Pope would have made it still more excellent, and would have profited much, if he could have feen Blackwell's Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer; a work, though written indeed with fome affectation of ftyle, that abounds in curious researches and obfervations, and places Homer in a new light; by endeavouring to fhew. how it has happened that no poet has ever equalled him for upwards of two thousand years; namely, by the united influence of the happieft climate; the most natural manners to paint; the boldest lan guage work, as it is the great and peculiar characteristic which distinguishes him from all other authors. This strong and ruling faculty was like a powerful ftar, which, in the violence of its courfe, drew all things within its vortex. It seemed not enough to have taken in the whole circle of arts, and the whole compass of nature, to fupply his maxims and reflections; all the inward paffions and affections of mankind, to furnish his characters; and all the outward forms and images of things for his defcriptions: but wanting yet an ampler fphere to expatiate in, he opened a new and boundless walk for his imagination, and created a world for himself in the invention of Fable. That which Ariftotle calls the Soul of Poetry, was firft breathed into it by Homer. I fhall begin with confidering him in this part, as it is naturally the first, and I speak of it both as it means the defign of a poem, and as it is taken for fiction. • Fable may be divided into the probable, the allegorical, and the marvellous. The probable fable is the recital of fuch actions as, though they did not happen, yet might, in the common courfe of nature: or of fuch guage to ufe; the moft expreffive religion; and the richest fubjec to work upon. Nature, after all, is the fureft rule, and real characters the best ground of fiction. The paffions of the human mind, if truly awaked, and kept up by objects fitted to them, dictate a language peculiar to themselves. Homer has copied it, and done justice to nature. We fee her image in his draft; and this Work is the great Drama of Life, acted in our view. A moft ingenious theory, if not folid, in every refpect. |
