onal prowess decided every thing; the night attack and the
ambuscade, although much esteemed, were never upon a large scale.
The chiefs fight in advance, and enact almost as much as the knights
of romance. The siege of Troy was as little like a modern siege as a
captain in the guards is like Achilles. There is no mention of a
ditch or any other line or work round the town, and the wall itself
was accessible without a ladder. It was probably a vast mound of
earth with a declivity outwards. Patroclus thrice mounts it in
armour. The Trojans are in no respects blockaded, and receive
assistance from their allies to the very end."--Coleridge, p. 212.

247 --_Ciconians._--A people of Thrace, near the Hebrus.

248 --_They wept._

"Fast by the manger stands the inactive steed,
And, sunk in sorrow, hangs his languid head;
He stands, and careless of his golden grain,
Weeps his associates and his master slain."

Merrick's Tryphiodorus, v. 18-24.

"Nothing is heard upon the mountains now,
But pensive herds that for their master low,
Straggling and comfortless about they rove,
Unmindful of their pasture and their love."

Moschus, id. 3, parodied, _ibid._

"To close the pomp, AEthon, the steed of state,
Is led, the funeral of his lord to wait.
Stripp'd of his trappings, with a sullen pace
He walks, and the big tears run rolling down his face."

Dryden's Virgil, bk. ii

249 --_Some brawny bull._

"Like to a bull, that with impetuous spring
Darts, at the moment when the fatal blow
Hath struck him, but unable to proceed
Plunges on either side."

--Carey's Dante: Hell, c. xii.

250 This is connected with the earlier part of last book, the regular
narrative being interrupted by the message of Antilochus and the
lamentations of Achilles.

251 --_Far in the deep._ So Oceanus hears the lamentations of Prometheus,
in the play of AEschylus, and comes from the depths of the sea to
comfort him.

252 Opuntia, a city of Locris.

253 Quintus Calaber, lib. v., has attempted to rival Homer in his
description of the shield of the same he