expresses
in his own person a thing not usual with him, his
disapprobation in the strongest terms, of Achilles's
barbarous usage of Heistor's dead Body, that piece of
cruelty which Alexander particularly imitated.

+Hektora dion aeikea medeto erga+ are his words, when he
introduces the narration of that event. No doubt Homer's
writings have been, and may be abused, and so may the best
and most useful of all human inventions; religion itself has
not escaped, and its abuse has been ever attended with the
most pernicious and destructive consequences. But surely
they are not so liable to be abused as your compositions;
Homer, indeed, describes vicious characters, but all their
viciousness consists in the natural passions being carried
to a blameable excess, he paints no improvement, no
refinement, no elaborate contrivance in villany, this is
what you excell in, above all the authors antient or modern,
I remember to have read. The anger of Achilles was raised by
a most provoking insult which he received from Agamemnon. He
thus expresses himself:

_My maid, my black-ey'd maid he forc'd away,_
_Due to the toils of many a dreadful Day,_
_From me he forc'd her, me, the bold and brave,_
_Disgrac'd, dishonour'd, like the vilest slave._

What could be more natural than a resentment on such an
occasion? And what could be more natural, than for a man of
Achilles's temper to carry that resentment too far? Both he
and Agamemnon suffer severely for the errors they commit;
and what renders the fable still more beautiful, and the
moral still more instructive, is this consideration, that
their sufferings appear to be the unavoidable and necessary
consequences of their errors; of course, nothing can more
effectually deter others in similar circumstances from being
guilty of the like faults for the future. But the oeconomy
of your plot, and the disposition of your characters, are
entirely different. Lovelace determines on the ruin of
Clarissa, from motives and passions altogether unnatural,
which could subsist no where, but in a heart debauched of
itself, initiated in all the mysteries of villany, and
regularly educated in an academy of wickedness; his motives
and passions are an aversion to marriage, a resentment
against Clarissa's family, an infamous resolution to wreak
his revenge on the only person in it, who loved him;
a ridiculous doubt of her virtue, and a vain-glorious pride,
in having a reputation for intrigue, and