e piece is a
beautiful monster at the best. Neither Virgil nor Homer were deficient
in any of the former beauties; but in this last, which is expression,
the Roman poet is at least equal to the Grecian, as I have said
elsewhere, supplying the poverty of his language by his musical ear, and
by his diligence. But to return: our two great poets, being so different
in their tempers, one choleric and sanguine, the other phlegmatic and
melancholic; that which makes them excel in their several ways is, that
each of them has followed his own natural inclination, as well in
forming the design, as in the execution of it. The very heroes show
their authors; Achilles is hot, impatient, revengeful--_impiger,
iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,_ &c.: AEneas patient, considerate, careful
of his people, and merciful to his enemies; ever submissive to the will
of Heaven--_quo fata trahunt, retrahuntque, sequamur_. I could please
myself with enlarging on this subject, but am forced to defer it to a
fitter time. From all I have said, I will only draw this inference, that
the action of Homer being more full of vigour than that of Virgil,
according to the temper of the writer, is of consequence more pleasing
to the reader. One warms you by degrees; the other sets you on fire all
at once, and never intermits his heat. 'Tis the same difference which
Longinus makes betwixt the effects of eloquence in Demosthenes and
Tully--one persuades; the other commands. You never cool while you read
Homer, even not in the second book (a graceful flattery to his
countrymen), but he hastens from the ships, and concludes not that book
till he has made you an amends by the violent playing of a new machine.
From thence he hurries on his action with variety of events, and ends it
in less compass than two months. This vehemence of his, I confess, is
more suitable to my temper; and therefore I have translated his first
book with greater pleasure than any part of Virgil. But it was not a
pleasure without pains; the continual agitations of the spirits must
needs be a weakening of any constitution, especially in age, and many
pauses are required for refreshment betwixt the heats, the Iliad of
itself being a third part longer than all Virgil's works together.

This is what I thought needful in this place to say of Homer. I proceed
to Ovid and Chaucer; considering the former only in relation to the
latter. With Ovid ended the golden age of the Roman tongue: from Chaucer
the