seem rather to charge him with a defect or
narrowness of genius, than an excess of it, those seeming defects will be
found upon examination to proceed wholly from the nature of the times he
lived in. Such are his grosser representations of the gods; and the
vicious and imperfect manners of his heroes; but I must here speak a word
of the latter, as it is a point generally carried into extremes, both by
the censurers and defenders of Homer. It must be a strange partiality to
antiquity, to think with Madame Dacier,(38) "that those times and manners
are so much the more excellent, as they are more contrary to ours." Who
can be so prejudiced in their favour as to magnify the felicity of those
ages, when a spirit of revenge and cruelty, joined with the practice of
rapine and robbery, reigned through the world: when no mercy was shown but
for the sake of lucre; when the greatest princes were put to the sword,
and their wives and daughters made slaves and concubines? On the other
side, I would not be so delicate as those modern critics, who are shocked
at the servile offices and mean employments in which we sometimes see the
heroes of Homer engaged. There is a pleasure in taking a view of that
simplicity, in opposition to the luxury of succeeding ages: in beholding
monarchs without their guards; princes tending their flocks, and
princesses drawing water from the springs. When we read Homer, we ought to
reflect that we are reading the most ancient author in the heathen world;
and those who consider him in this light, will double their pleasure in
the perusal of him. Let them think they are growing acquainted with
nations and people that are now no more; that they are stepping almost
three thousand years back into the remotest antiquity, and entertaining
themselves with a clear and surprising vision of things nowhere else to be
found, the only true mirror of that ancient world. By this means alone
their greatest obstacles will vanish; and what usually creates their
dislike, will become a satisfaction.

This consideration may further serve to answer for the constant use of the
same epithets to his gods and heroes; such as the "far-darting Phoebus,"
the "blue-eyed Pallas," the "swift-footed Achilles," &c., which some have
censured as impertinent, and tediously repeated. Those of the gods
depended upon the powers and offices then believed to belong to them; and
had contracted a weight and veneration from the rites and solemn devotion