n to pour forth his strains; and their
reputation, so far from declining, is on the increase. Successive
nations are employed in celebrating his works; generation after
generation of men are fascinated by his imagination. Discrepancies of
race, of character, of institutions, of religion, of age, of the
world, are forgotten in the common worship of his genius. In this
universal tribute of gratitude, modern Europe vies with remote
antiquity, the light Frenchman with the volatile Greek, the
impassioned Italian with the enthusiastic German, the sturdy
Englishman with the unconquerable Roman, the aspiring Russian with the
proud American. Seven cities, in ancient times, competed for the
honour of having given him birth, but seventy nations have since been
moulded by his productions. He gave a mythology to the ancients; he
has given the fine arts to the modern world. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars,
Juno, are still household words in every tongue; Vulcan is yet the god
of fire, Neptune of the ocean, Venus of love. When Michael Angelo and
Canova strove to embody their conceptions of heroism or beauty, they
portrayed the heroes of the _Iliad_. Flaxman's genius was elevated to
the highest point in embodying its events. Epic poets, in subsequent
times, have done little more than imitate his machinery, copy his
characters, adopt his similes, and, in a few instances, improve upon
his descriptions. Painting and statuary, for two thousand years, have
been employed in striving to portray, by the pencil or the chisel, his
yet breathing conceptions. Language and thought itself have been
moulded by the influence of his poetry. Images of wrath are still
taken from Achilles, of pride from Agamemnon, of astuteness from
Ulysses, of patriotism from Hector, of tenderness from Andromache, of
age from Nestor. The galleys of Rome were, the line-of-battle ships of
France and England still are, called after his heroes. The Agamemnon
long bore the flag of Nelson; the Ajax perished by the flames within
sight of the tomb of the Telamonian hero, on the shores of the
Hellespont; the Achilles was blown up at the battle of Trafalgar.
Alexander the Great ran round the tomb of Achilles before undertaking
the conquest of Asia. It was the boast of Napoleon that his mother
reclined on tapestry representing the heroes of the _Iliad_, when he
was brought into the world. The greatest poets of ancient and modern
times have spent their lives in the study of his genius or the