s
in which they were used: they were a sort of attributes with which it was
a matter of religion to salute them on all occasions, and which it was an
irreverence to omit. As for the epithets of great men, Mons. Boileau is of
opinion, that they were in the nature of surnames, and repeated as such;
for the Greeks having no names derived from their fathers, were obliged to
add some other distinction of each person; either naming his parents
expressly, or his place of birth, profession, or the like: as Alexander
the son of Philip, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Diogenes the Cynic, &c.
Homer, therefore, complying with the custom of his country, used such
distinctive additions as better agreed with poetry. And, indeed, we have
something parallel to these in modern times, such as the names of Harold
Harefoot, Edmund Ironside, Edward Longshanks, Edward the Black Prince, &c.
If yet this be thought to account better for the propriety than for the
repetition, I shall add a further conjecture. Hesiod, dividing the world
into its different ages, has placed a fourth age, between the brazen and
the iron one, of "heroes distinct from other men; a divine race who fought
at Thebes and Troy, are called demi-gods, and live by the care of Jupiter
in the islands of the blessed." Now among the divine honours which were
paid them, they might have this also in common with the gods, not to be
mentioned without the solemnity of an epithet, and such as might be
acceptable to them by celebrating their families, actions or qualities.

What other cavils have been raised against Homer, are such as hardly
deserve a reply, but will yet be taken notice of as they occur in the
course of the work. Many have been occasioned by an injudicious endeavour
to exalt Virgil; which is much the same, as if one should think to raise
the superstructure by undermining the foundation: one would imagine, by
the whole course of their parallels, that these critics never so much as
heard of Homer's having written first; a consideration which whoever
compares these two poets ought to have always in his eye. Some accuse him
for the same things which they overlook or praise in the other; as when
they prefer the fable and moral of the AEneis to those of the Iliad, for
the same reasons which might set the Odyssey above the AEneis; as that the
hero is a wiser man, and the action of the one more beneficial to his
country than that of the other; or else they blame him for not doing what