t, or the thoughts unnatural,
then the finest colors are but daubing, and the 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 follow'd his own natural inclination, as well
in forming the design as in the execution of it. The very heroes
shew their authors: Achilles is hot, impatient, revengeful, _Impiger,
iracundus, inexorabidis, acer_[7] &c.; AEneas patient, considerate,
careful of his people, and merciful to his enemies; ever submissive
to the will of Heaven--_Quo fata trahunt retrahuntque seqitamur_.[8]
I could please myself with enlarging on this subject, but am forc'd 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 vigor 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 t