at exhibiting a model of perfect virtue in the character of his hero. If he displays some good qualities, as courage, generosity,. and the enthusiasm of friendship, he pre-. sents, at the same time, a complete picture of ungovernable passion and brutal ferocity. Indeed, it is remarkable, that, notwithstanding the visible partiality of Homer for his own countrymen, he has placed the superiority, in point of humanity, and even of true magnanimity, decidedly on the opposite side. Possibly, in this, he did no more than follow the truth of history; and the Trojans, situated in a more fertile climate, may have attained, at that time, to a higher degree of civilization and refinement than their Grecian neighbours.

It

The Odyssey is a less sublime, less poetical, performance than the Iliad, but is perhaps more pleasing and instructive. gives a more various and intimate view of the manners of the age; and, though Ulysses cannot be considered as a faultless model, he certainly approaches much nearer to it than the hero of the Iliad.

VIRGIL

From the writings of Homer, we now tarn to those of his illustrious rival. The Æneid was not, like the Iliad and Odyssey, produced in a barbarous age, but in one of high comparative civilization and refinement. Before making any direct observations upon this poem, it may be proper to consider some circumstances of the times in which it was produced.

Letters, at Rome, were not of native growth. That city, become the mistress of the world, and drawing from every different province the luxuries it afforded, imported from Greece the elegant luxuries of science and literature. Hence her greatest poets are to be considered as imitators of Grecian models. They were not, however, tame or slavish imitators. Though frequently bringing forward the same ideas, they express them in a manner peculiar to themselves. It they yield to their masters in invention, in simplicity, in fancy, they surpass them in dignity and correctness.

These observations apply, in a peculiar manner, to the neid. Perhaps no work ever united such exalted genius, with so small a portion of originality. Virgil seems to have aimed at transfusing into his own language the beauties of Homer, separated from his faults; and he has in part succeed. ed. He has retrenched his languors, his repetitions, his tiresome digressions; and, to his lofty and irregular flights, has substituted an uniform and well supported majesty. It cannot be said, that he has discovered stronger pathetic powers; but he has certainly exerted them much oftener.

In regard to manners, the Encid is far from being of equal value. Virgil was naturally disposed, by historical fruth, as well as by his devotion to Homer, to make these the same as in the Hiad and Odyssey. But, to the polished age for which he wrote, the coarseness and ferocity of those times would have been extremely disgusting. These, therefore, he was frequently obliged to soften; so that his work exhibits not the manners of any one age, but of several blended together.

In general, his representations are not copied, either from personal observation, or from any source of information, of which we are not equally possessed. In an historical view, therefore, the Eneid has little or no claim to regard. Its interest must rest entirely on its poetical merit; which forms, it must be owned, a very ample foundation.

The critics have been at great pains to extract a moral out of Virgil as well as Homer; not, in my opinion, with much better success. That which they have fixed upon, so far as I recollect, is the beneficial effects of piety to the gods. But, unless from his own frequent declarations, we could hardly discover Eneas to possess this virtue in any peculiar degree. Nor does it appear to have contributed much to the advance-· ment of his fortunes. The favour which he enjoyed above, is evidently owing chiefly to his high extraction; and the protection of Jupiter granted, not to his own merit, but to the beauty and tears of a favourite daughter. Upon the whole, we may safely conclude, that both Homer and Virgil had this object

very little, if at all, in view. This, indeed, if the observations formerly made on that subject be just, can hardly be considered as. a blemish in their writings.

But if Virgil has advanced no claim to. merit in these two respects, he has aimed at making his poem answer the third description of fictitious productions. Encas was evi-. dently designed for a perfect character.. The view of the poet in this was, perhaps, not so much to promote the moral improvement of his readers, as to give an additional ornament to his poem.. Whatever it was, it has been by no means successful. He seems to have considered perfection too much as a negative quality, and as connected with an insensible and unimpassioned turn of mind. Did virtue consist merely in doing no harm, Eneas might have some claim to it. In so far as it requires just feeling and active exertion, he does not seem to have very much. The drawing of characters, indeed, is generally allowed to be the point in which Virgil has most completely failed. Considering the high powers which, in other respects, he has displayed, we can hardly