re
we prevented from being shocked at his cruelty, in
slaughtering without distinction, or remorse, all who come
in his way? When we are told that he himself is acting under
the certainty of meeting his death before the Trojan Wall?
In short, Homer is possessed of this peculiar secret, to
contrive and add such circumstances that render all his
characters probable, and to blend vices and virtues of a
similar quality so together, as to render them all uniformly
consistent. And now tho' I confess, with pleasure, that
you are far from being destitute of merit, in some of
the characters you draw, yet you seem to be intirely
unacquainted with this secret. In order to illustrate my
assertion, I shall run thro' your principal characters in a
cursory and desultory manner.

In Grandison, you have endeavoured to give an example of
universal goodness and benevolence. But I am afraid you have
strained and stretched that character too far; you have
furnished him with too great a variety of accomplishments,
some of them destructive, at least not so consistent with
the principal and most shining virtue. _The man is every
thing_, as Lucy or Harriet says; which no man ever was, or
will be. Homer in the Odyssey, and in the character of
Euemaeus, has given an example of universal benevolence; but
then he represents him an entire rustic, living constantly
in the country, shunning all public concourse of men, the
court especially, and never going thither, but when obliged
to supply the riotous luxury and extravagance of the
suitors. Mr. Fielding has imitated these circumstances, as
far as was consistent with our manners, in the character of
Allworthy, and has with admirable judgment denied him an
university education, made him a great lover of retirement,
seldom absent from his country seat, never at the metropolis
but when called by business, and constantly leaving it, when
that was over. The ingenious authoress of David Simple,
perhaps the best moral romance that we have, in which there
is not one loose expression, one impure, one unchaste idea;
from the perusal of which, no man can rise unimproved, has
represented, her hero, a character likewise of universal
benevolence, agreeably to the part he was to act; of tender
years, quite unimproved by education, unexperienced, and
ignorant of the ways of the world. Should we now consider
the matter a little deeply, we shall find a reason in nature
for the practice of these just painters of