fidelity to nature, more
felicity of sentiment, more animation of narrative, and more truth of
character, than can be matched in all the _Iliad_ or the _Odyssey_. On
the other hand, if by [Greek: hypsos] you choose absurdly to mean
sublimity in the modern sense, then it will suffice for us that we
challenge _you_ to the production of one instance which truly and
incontestably embodies that quality.[11] The burthen of proof rests
upon you who affirm, not upon us who deny. Meantime, as a kind of
choke-pear, we leave with the Homeric adorer this one brace of
portraits, or hints for such a brace, which we commend to his
comparison, as Hamlet did the portraits of the two brothers to his
besotted mother. We are talking of the sublime: that is our thesis.
Now observe: there is a catalogue in the _Iliad_--there is a catalogue
in the _Paradise Lost_. And, like a river of Macedon and of Monmouth,
the two catalogues agree in that one fact--viz. that they _are_ such.
But as to the rest, we are willing to abide by the issue of that one
comparison, left to the very dullest sensibility, for the decision of
the total question at issue. And what is that? Not, Heaven preserve
us! as to the comparative claims of Milton and Homer in this point of
sublimity--for surely it would be absurd to compare him who has most
with him whom we affirm to have none at all--but whether Homer has the
very smallest pretensions in that point. The result, as we state it,
is this:--The catalogue of the ruined angels in Milton, is, in itself
taken separately, a perfect poem, with the beauty, and the felicity,
and the glory of a dream. The Homeric catalogue of ships is exactly on
a level with the muster-roll of a regiment, the register of a
tax-gatherer, the catalogue of an auctioneer. Nay, some catalogues are
far more interesting, and more alive with meaning. 'But him followed
fifty black ships!'--'But him follow seventy black ships!' Faugh! We
could make a more readable poem out of an Insolvent's Balance Sheet.

[Footnote 11: The description of Apollo in wrath as [Greek: nukti
eoiko], like night, is a doubtful case. With respect to the shield of
Achilles, it cannot be denied that the general conception has, in
common with all abstractions (as _e. g._ the abstractions of dreams,
of prophetic visions, such as that in the 6th AEneid, that to Macbeth,
that shown by the angel Michael to Adam), something fine and, in its
own nature, let the execution be what it may