any contest, and
selecting for his reward the richest spoils and the fairest maid.
Achilles, the heroic heathen, was then fully and satisfactorily
employed, and according to his semi-barbarous notions of joy and right,
was happy within his own breast, and was happy in the world around him.
When the same youthful warrior was insulted by the leader under whose
banners he had rallied, when the private recesses of his tent were
invaded, and his domestic peace disturbed, his mind was strongly
agitated by love, anger, hatred, the passion for strife, and the intense
effort at forbearance; and though there was here room enough for
activity, there was nothing but pain and misery. But when the dispute
was over, and the pupil of the Centaur, trained for strife, and victory,
and glory, separated from the army, and gave himself up to an inactive
contemplation of the struggle against Troy, his mind was abandoned to
the sentiment of discontent, and his passions were absorbed in the
morbid feeling of ennui. Homer was an exact painter of the human
passions. The picture which he draws of Achilles,[1] receiving the
subsequent deputation from the Greeks, illustrates our subject exactly.
It was in vain for the hero to attempt to sooth his mind with the
melodies of the lyre; his blood kindled only at the music of war; it was
idle for him to seek sufficient pleasure in celebrating the renown of
heroes; this was but a vain effort to quell the burning passion for
surpassing them in glory. He listens to the deputation, not tranquilly,
but peevishly. He charges them with duplicity, and avows that he loathes
their king like the gates of hell.[2] He next reverts to himself: The
warrior has no thanks, he exclaims in the bitterness of
disappointment--"The coward and the brave man are held in equal honour."
Nay, he goes further, and quarrels with providence and fixed
destiny.--"After all, the idler, and the man of many achievements, each
must die."[3] To-morrow, he adds, his vessels shall float on the
Hellespont. The morning dawned; but the ships of Achilles still lingered
near the banks of the Scamander. The notes of battle sounded, and his
mind was still in suspense between the fiery impulse for war and the
haughty reserve of revenge.

When Bruce found himself approaching the sources of the Nile, a thousand
sentiments of pride rushed upon his mind; it seemed to him, that destiny
had marked out for him a more fortunate and more glorious career, than