landscape of nature; and instructs us by a constant vein of morality and virtue, which runs through the poem. At the same time, there are some defects which must be acknowledg ed in the Odyssey. Many scenes in it fall below the majesty which we naturally expect in an epic poem. The last twelve books, after Ulysses is landed in Ithaca, are, in several parts, tedious and languid; and though the discovery which Ulysses makes of himself to his nurse, Euryclea, and his interview with Penelope before she knows him, in the nineteenth book, are tender and affecting, yet the poet does not seem happy in the great anagnorisis, or the discovery of Ulysses to Penelope. She is too cautious and distrustful, and we are disappointed of the surprise of joy, which we expected on that high occasion. After baving said so much of the father of epic poetry, it is now time to proceed to Virgil, who has a very marked character, quite distinct from that of Homer. As the distinguishing excellencies of the Iliad are simplicity and fire; those of the Eneid are elegance and tenderness. Virgil is, beyond doubt, less animated and less sublime than Homer; but to counterbalance this, he has fewer negligences, greater variety, and supports more of a correct and regular dignity, throughout his work. When we begin to read the Iliad, we find ourselves in the region of the most remote, and even unrefined antiquity. When we open the Eneid, we discover all the correctness, and the improvements of the Augustan age. We meet with no contentions of heroes about a female slave; no violent scolding, nor abusive language; but the poem opens with the utmost magnificence; with Juno, forming designs for preventing Æneas's establishment in Italy, and Æneas himself, presented to us with all his fleet in the middle of a storm, which is described in the highest style of poetry. The subject of the Eneid is extremely happy; still more so, in my opinion, than either of Homer's poems. As nothing could be more no ble; nor carry more of epic dignity, so nothing could be more flattering and interesting to the Roman people, than Virgil's deriving the origin of their state from so famous a hero as Eneas. The object was splendid in itself; it gave the poet a theme, taken from the ancient traditionary history of his own country; it allowed him to connect his subject with Homer's stories, and to adopt all his mythology; it afforded him the opportunity of frequently glancing at all the future great exploits of the Romans, and of describing Italy, and the very territory of Rome, in its ancient and fabulous state. The establishment of Eneas constantly traversed by Juno, leads to a great diversity of events, of voyages, and wars; and furnishes a proper intermixture of incidents of peace with martial exploits. Upon the whole, I believe, there is no where to be found so complete a model of an epic fable, or story, as Virgil's Æneid. I see no foundation for the opinion, entertained by some critics, that the Eneid is to be considered as an allegorical poem, which carries a constant reference to the character and reign of Augustus Cæsar; or, that Virgil's main design in composing the Eneid, was to reconcile the Romans to the government of that prince, who is supposed to be shadowed out under the character of Eneas. Virgil, indeed, like the other poets of that age, takes every opportunity which his subject affords him, of paying court to Augustus.* But, to imagine that he carried a political * As particularly in that noted passage of the 6th book, 1.791 plan in his view, through the whole poem, appears to me no more than à fanciful refinement. He had sufficient motives, as a poet, to determine him to the choice of his subject, from its being, in itself, both great and pleasing from its being suited to his genius, and its being attended with the peculiar advantages I mentioned above, for the full display of poetical talents. Unity of action is perfectly preserved; as, from beginning to end, one main object is always kept in view, the settlement of Eneas in Italy by the order of the gods. As the story comprehends the transactions of several years, part of the transactions are very properly thrown into a recital made by the hero. The episodes are linked with sufficient connexion to the main subject; and the nodus, or intrigue of the poem, is, according to the plan of ancient machinery, happily formed. The wrath of Juno, who opposes herself to the Trojan settlement in Italy, gives rise to all the difficulties which obstruct Æneas's undertaking, and connects the human with the celestial operations, throughout the whole work. Hence arise the tempest which throws Eneas upon the shore of Africa; the passion of Dido, who endeavours to detain him at Carthage; and the efforts of Turnus, who opposes him in war. Till, at Jast, upon a composition made with Jupiter, that the Trojan name shall be for ever sunk in the Latin, Juno foregoes her resentment, and the hero becomes victorious. In these main points, Virgil has conducted his work with great propriety, and shewn his art and judgment. But the admiration due to so eminent a poet, must not prevent us from remarking some other particulars in which he has failed. First, there are scarce any characters marked in the Æneid. In this respect it is insipid, when compared to the Iliad, which is full of characters and life. Achates, and Cloanthus, and Gyas, and the rest of the Trojan heroes, who accompanied Æneas into Italy, are so many undistinguished figures, who are in no way made known to us, either by any sentiments which they utter, or any memor able exploits which they perform. Even Eneas himself is not a very interesting hero. He is described, indeed, as pious and brave; but his character is not marked with any of those strokes that touch the heart; it is a sort of cold and tame character; and throughout his behaviour to Dido, in the fourth book, especially in the speech which he makes after she suspected his intention of leaving her, there appears a certain hardness and want of relenting, which is far from rendering him amiable.* Dido's own character is by much the best supported in the whole Æneid. The warmth of her passions, the keenness of her indignation and resentment, and the violence of her whole character, exhibit a figure greatly more animated than any other which Virgil has drawn. Besides this defect of character in the Eneid, the distribution and management of the subject are, in some respects, exceptionable. The Eneid, it is true, must be considered with the indulgence due to a work not thoroughly completed. The six last books are said not to have received the finishing hand of the author; and for this reason, he ordered, by his will, the Eneid to be committed to the flames. But though this may account for incorrectness of execution, it does not apologize for a falling off in the subject, which seems to take place in the latter part * Num fletu ingemuit nostro? Num lumina flexit? Num lachrymas victus dedit? Aut miseratus amantem est? Æn. iv. 368. of the work. The wars with the Latins are inferior in point of dignity, to the more interesting objects which had before been presented to us, in the destruction of Troy, the intrigue with Dido, and the descent into hell. And in those Italian wars, there is, perhaps, a more material fault still, in the conduct of the story. The reader, as Voltaire has observ ed, is tempted to take part with Turnus against Eneas. Turnus, a brave young prince, in love with Lavinia, his near relation, is destined for her by general consent, and highly favoured by her mother. Lavinia herself discovers no reluctance to the match: when there arrives a stranger, a fugitive from a distant region, who had never seen her, and who, founding a claim on an establishment in Italy upon oracles and prophesies, embroils the country in war, kills the lover of Lavinia, and proves the occasion of her mother's death. Such a plan is not fortunately laid, for disposing us to be favourable to the hero of the poem : and the defect might have been easily remedied, by the poets making Eneas, instead of distressing Lavinia, deliver her from the persecution of some rival who was odious to her, and to the whole country. But, notwithstanding these defects, which it was necessary to remark, Virgil possesses beauties which have justly drawn the admiration of ages, and which to this day, hold the balance in equilibrium between bis fame, and that of Homer. The principal and distinguishing excellency of Virgil, and which, in my opinion, he possesses beyond all poets, is tenderness. Nature had endowed him with exquisite sensibility; he felt every affecting circumstance in the scenes he describes; and, by a single stroke, he knows how to reach the heart. This, in an epic poem, is the merit next to sublimity; and puts it in an author's power to render his composition extremely interesting to all readers. The chief beauty of this kind, in the Iliad, is, the interview of Hector and Andromache. But, in the Eneid, there are many such. The second book is one of the greatest master-pieces that ever was executed by any hand; and Virgil seems to have put forth there, the whole strength of his genius, as the subject afforded a variety of scenes, both of the awful and tender kind. The images of horror, presented by a city burned and sacked in the night, are finely mixed with pathetic and affecting incidents. Nothing, in any poet, is more beautifully described than the death of old Priam; and the family-pieces of Æneas, Anchises, and Creusa, are as tender as can be conceived. In many passages of the Eneid, the same pathetic spirit shines; and they have been always the favourite passages in that work. The fourth book, for instance, relating the unhappy passion and death of Dido, has been always most justly admired, and abounds with beauties of the highest kind. The interview of Eneas with Andromache and Helenus, in the third book; the episodes of Pallas and Evander, of Nisus and Euryalus, of Lausus and Mezentius, in the Italian wars, are all striking instances of the poet's power of raising the tender emotions. For we must observe, that though the Æneid be an unequal poem, and, in some places, languid, yet there are beauties scattered through it all; and not a few, even in the last six books. The best and most finished books, upon the whole, are, the first, the second, the fourth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, and the twelfth. Virgil's battles are far inferior to Homer's in point of fire and sublimity but there is one important episode, the decent into hell, in which he has outdone Homer in the Odyssey, by many degrees. There is Mothing in all antiquity, equal, in its kind, to the sixth book of the Eneid. The scenery, and the objects are great and striking; and fill the mind with that solemn awe, which was to be expected from a view of the invisible world. There runs through the whole description, a certain philosophical sublime; which Virgil's Platonic genius, and the enlarged ideas of the Augustan age, enabled him to support with a degree of majesty, far beyond what the rude ideas of Homer's age suffered him to attain. With regard to the sweetness and beauty of Virgil's numbers, throughout his whole works, they are so well known, that it were needless to enlarge in the praise of them. Upon the whole, as to the comparative merit of these two great princes of epic poetry, Homer and Virgil, the former must, undoubtedly, be admitted to be the greater genius: the latter, to be the more correct writer. Homer was an original in his art, and discovers both the beauties, and the defects, which are to be expected in an original author, compared with those who succeed him ; more boldness, more nature and ease, more sublimity and force; but greater irregularities and negligences in composition. Virgil has, all along, kept his eye upon Homer; in many places, he has not so much imitated, as he has literally translated him. The description of the storm, for instance, in the first Eneid, and Enea's speech upon that occasion, are translations from the fifth book of the Odyssey; not to mention almost all the similies of Virgil which are no other than copies of those of Homer. The pre-eminence in invention, therefore, must, beyond doubt, be ascribed to Homer. As to the pre-eminence in judgment, though many critics incline to give it to Virgil, yet, in my opinion, it hangs doubtful. In Homer, we discern all the Greek vivacity; in Virgil, all the Roman statelicess. Homer's imagination is by much the most rich and copious; Virgil's the most chaste and correct. The strength of the former lies, in his power of warming the fancy; that of the latter, in his power of touching the heart. Homer's style is more simple and animated; Virgil's more ele gant and uniform. The first has on many occasions, a sublimity to which the latter never attains; but the latter, in return, never sinks below a certain degree of epic dignity, which cannot so clearly be pronounced of the former. Not, however, to detract from the admiration due to both these great poets, most of Homer's defects may reasonably be imputed, not to his genius, but to the manners of the age in which he lived; and for the feeble passages of the Eneid, this excuse ought to be admitted, that the Eneid was left an unfinished work. LECTURE XL V. LUCAN'S PHARSALIA....TASSO'S JERUSALEM....CAMOENS' LUSIAD....FENELON'S TELEMACHUS....VOLTAIRE's AFTER Homer and Virgil, the next great epic poet of ancient times, who presents himself, is Lucan. He is a poet who deserves our attention, on account of a very peculiar mixture of great beauties with great faults. Though his Pharsalia discover too little invention, and be conducted in too historical a manner, to be accounted a perfect regular epic poem, yet it were the mere squeamishness of criticism, to exclude it from the epic class. The boundaries, as I formerly remarked, are far from being ascertained by any such precise limit, that we must refuse the epic name to a poem, which treats of great and heroic adventures, because it is not exactly conformable to the plans of Homer and Virgil. The subject of the Pharsalia carries, undoubtedly, all the epic grandeur and dignity; neither does it want unity of object, viz. the triumph of Cæsar over the Roman liberty. As it stands at present, it is, indeed, brought to no proper close. But either time has deprived us of the last books, or it has been left by the author an incomplete work. Though Lucan's subject be abundantly heroic, yet I cannot reckon him happy in the choice of it. It has two defects. The one is, that civil wars, especially when as fierce and cruel as those of the Romans, present too many shocking objects to be fit for epic poetry, and give odious and disgusting views of human nature. Gallant and honourable achievements, furnish a more proper theme for the epic muse. But Lucan's genius, it must be confessed, seems to delight in savage scenes; he dwells upon them too much; and not content with those which his subject naturally furnished, he goes out of his way to introduce a long episode of Marius and Sylla's proscriptions, which abounds with all the forms of atrocious cruelty. The other defect of Lucan's subject is, its being too near the times in which he lived. This is a circumstance, as I observed in a former lecture, always unlucky for a poet; as it deprives him of the assistance of fiction and machinery; and thereby renders his work less splendid and amusing. Lucan has submitted to this disadvantage of his subject; and in doing so, he has acted with more propriety, than if he had made an unseasonable attempt to embellish it with machinery; for the fables of the gods, would have made a very unnatural mixture with the exploits of Cæsar and Pompey; and instead of raising, would have dimin ished the dignity of such recent, and well-known facts. With regard to characters, Lucan draws them with spirit, and with force. But though Pompey be his professed bero, he does not succeed in interesting us much in his favour. Pompey is not made to possess any high distinction, either for magnanimity in sentiment, or bravery in action; but on the contrary, is always eclipsed by the superior abilities of Cæsar. Cato, is in truth, Lucan's favourite character; and whereever he introduces him, he appears to rise above himself. Some of the noblest and most conspicuous passages in the work, are such as relate to Cato; either speeches put into his mouth, or descriptions of his behaviour. His speech, in particular, to Labienus, who urged him to inquire at the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, concerning the issue of the war [book ix. 564,] deserves to be remarked, as equal, for moral sublimity, to any thing that is to be found in all antiquity. In the conduct of the story, our author has attached himself too much to chronological order. This renders the thread of his narration broken and interrupted, and makes him hurry us too often from place to place. He is too digressive also; frequently turning aside from his subject, to give us, sometimes, geographical descriptions of a country; sometimes, philosophical disquisitions concerning natural objects; as, Kkk |