had been engaged with Ulysses in
the siege of Troy. The first that approached was Agamemnon, the
generalissimo of that great expedition, who at the appearance of his old
friend wept very bitterly, and without saying anything to him,
endeavoured to grasp him by the hand. Ulysses, who was much moved at the
sight, poured out a flood of tears, and asked him the occasion of his
death, which Agamemnon related to him in all its tragical
circumstances; how he was murdered at a banquet by the contrivance of
his own wife, in confederacy with her adulterer: from whence he takes
occasion to reproach the whole sex, after a manner which would be
inexcusable in a man who had not been so great a sufferer by them. "My
wife," says he, "has disgraced all the women that shall ever be born
into the world, even those who hereafter shall be innocent. Take care
how you grow too fond of your wife. Never tell her all you know. If you
reveal some things to her, be sure you keep others concealed from her.
You indeed have nothing to fear from your Penelope, she will not use you
as my wife has treated me; however, take care how you trust a woman."
The poet, in this and other instances, according to the system of many
heathen as well as Christian philosophers, shows how anger, revenge, and
other habits which the soul had contracted in the body, subsist and grow
in it under its stage of separation.

I am extremely pleased with the companions which the poet in the next
description assigns to Achilles. "Achilles," says the hero, "came up to
me with Patroclus and Antilochus." By which we may see that it was
Homer's opinion, and probably that of the age he lived in, that the
friendships which are made among the living will likewise continue among
the dead. Achilles inquires after the welfare of his son, and of his
father, with a fierceness of the same character that Homer has
everywhere expressed in the actions of his life. The passage relating to
his son is so extremely beautiful, that I must not omit it. Ulysses,
after having described him as wise in council and active in war, and
mentioned the foes whom he had slain in battle, adds an observation that
he himself had made of his behaviour whilst he lay in the wooden horse.
"Most of the generals," says he, "that were with us either wept or
trembled: as for your son, I neither saw him wipe a tear from his
cheeks, nor change his countenance. On the contrary, he would often lay
his hand upon his sword, or