Homer_ is in his Province, when he is describing a Battel or a
Multitude, a Heroe or a God. _Virgil_ is never better pleased, than when
he is in his _Elysium_, or copying out an entertaining Picture.
_Homer's_ Epithets generally mark out what is Great, _Virgil's_ what is
Agreeable. Nothing can be more Magnificent than the Figure _Jupiter_
makes in the first _Iliad_, no more Charming than that of Venus in the
first _AEneid_.

[Greek:
Ae, kai kyaneaesin ep' ophrysi neuse Kronion,
Ambrosiai d' ara chaitai eperrhosanto anaktos
Kratos ap' athanatoio megan d' elelixen Olympos.]

Dixit et avertens rosea cervice refulsit:
Ambrosiaeque comae; divinum vertice odorem
Spiravere: Pedes vestis defluxit ad imos:
Et vera incessu patuit Dea--

_Homer's_ Persons are most of them God-like and Terrible; _Virgil_ has
scarce admitted any into his Poem, who are not Beautiful, and has taken
particular Care to make his Heroe so.

--lumenque juventae
Purpureum, et laetos oculis afflavit honores.

In a Word, 'Homer' fills his Readers with Sublime Ideas, and, I believe,
has raised the Imagination of all the good Poets that have come after
him. I shall only instance 'Horace', who immediately takes Fire at the
first Hint of any Passage in the 'Iliad' or 'Odyssey', and always rises
above himself, when he has 'Homer' in his View. 'Virgil' has drawn
together, into his 'AEneid', all the pleasing Scenes his Subject is
capable of admitting, and in his 'Georgics' has given us a Collection of
the most delightful Landskips that can be made out of Fields and Woods,
Herds of Cattle, and Swarms of Bees.

'Ovid', in his 'Metamorphoses', has shewn us how the Imagination may be
affected by what is Strange. He describes a Miracle in every Story, and
always gives us the Sight of some new Creature at the end of it. His Art
consists chiefly in well-timing his Description, before the first Shape
is quite worn off, and the new one perfectly finished; so that he every
where entertains us with something we never saw before, and shews
Monster after Monster, to the end of the 'Metamorphoses'.

If I were to name a Poet that is a perfect Master in all these Arts of
working on the Imagination, I think 'Milton' may pass for one: And if
his 'Paradise Lost' falls short of the 'AEneid' or 'Iliad' in this
respect, it proceeds rather from the Fault of the Language in which it
is written, than from any Defect of Genius in the Author. So Divine a
Poem in