chief merit of the Campaign, we think, is that which was noticed by
Johnson, the manly and rational rejection of fiction. The first great
poet whose works have come down to us sang of war long before war
became a science or a trade. If, in his time, there was enmity between
two little Greek towns, each poured forth its crowd of citizens,
ignorant of discipline, and armed with implements of labor rudely turned
into weapons. On each side appeared conspicuous a few chiefs, whose
wealth had enabled them to procure good armor, horses, and chariots, and
whose leisure had enabled them to practise military exercises. One such
chief, if he were a man of great strength, ability, and courage, would
probably be more formidable than twenty common men; and the force and
dexterity with which he flung his spear might have no inconsiderable
share in deciding the event of the day. Such were probably the battles
with which Homer was familiar. But Homer related the actions of men of a
former generation, of men who sprang from the gods, and communed with
the gods face to face, of men, one of whom could with ease hurl rocks
which two sturdy hands of a later period would be unable even to lift.
He therefore naturally represented their martial exploits as resembling
in kind, but far surpassing in magnitude, those of the stoutest and most
expert combatants of his own age. Achilles, clad in celestial armor,
drawn by celestial coursers, grasping the spear which none but himself
could raise, driving all Troy and Lycia before him, and choking
Scamander with dead, was only a magnificent exaggeration of the real
hero, who, strong, fearless, accustomed to the use of weapons, guarded
by a shield and helmet of the best Sidonian fabric, and whirled along by
horses of Thessalian breed, struck down with his own right arm foe after
foe. In all rude societies similar notions are found. There are at this
day countries where the Lifeguardsman Shaw would be considered as a much
greater warrior than the Duke of Wellington. Bonaparte loved to describe
the astonishment with which the Mamelukes looked at his diminutive
figure. Mourad Bey, distinguished above all his fellows by his bodily
strength, and by the skill with which he managed his horse and his
sabre, could not believe that a man who was scarcely five feet high, and
rode like a butcher, could be the greatest soldier in Europe.

Homer's descriptions of war had therefore as much truth as poetry
requires. But