and vicious and therefore accommodate such speeches to base and vicious
persons, they will never be damnified by them from the esteem they have
of the poets in whom they meet with them. But, on the contrary, the
suspicions insinuated into them of the persons will render the words
and actions ascribed to them suspected for evil, because proceeding from
such evil men. And of this nature is Homer's representation of Paris,
when he describes him running out of the battle into Helen's bed. For in
that he attributes no such indecent act to any other, but only to that
incontinent and adulterous person, he evidently declares that he intends
that relation to import a disgrace and reproach to such intemperance.

In such passages therefore we are carefully to observe whether or not
the poet himself do anywhere give any intimation that he dislikes the
things he makes such persons say; which, in the prologue to his Thais
Menander does, in these words:--

Therefore, my Muse, describe me now a whore,
Fair, bold, and furnished with a nimble tongue;
One that ne'er scruples to do lovers wrong;
That always craves, and denied shuts her door;
That truly loves no man, yet, for her ends,
Affection true to every man pretends.

But Homer of all the poets does it best. For he doth beforehand, as it
were, bespeak dislike of the evil things and approbation of the good
things he utters. Of the latter take these instances:--

He readily did the occasion take,
And sweet and comfortable words he spake;
("Odyssey," vi. 148.)

By him he stood, and with soft speeches quelled
The wrath which in his heated bosom swelled.
("Iliad," ii. 180.)

And for the former, he so performs it as in a manner solemnly to forbid
us to use or heed such speeches as those he mentions, as being foolish
and wicked. For example, being to tell us how uncivilly Agamemnon
treated the priest, he premises these words of his own,--

Not so Atrides: he with kingly pride
Repulsed the sacred sire, and thus replied;
(Ibid. i. 24.)

intimating the insolency and unbecomingness of his answer. And when he
attributes this passionate speech to Achilles,--

O monster, mix'd of insolence and fear,
Thou dog in forehead, and in heart a deer!
(Ibid. i. 225.)

he accompanies it with this censure,--

Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook,
Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke;