admiration of mankind, the Jerufalem of Taffo alone would make a tolerable novel, if reduced to profe, and related without that fplendour of verfification and imagery by which it is supported; yet, in the opinion of many great judges, the Jerufalem is the leaft perfect of all these productions; chiefly, because it has least nature and fimplicity in the fentiments, and is most liable to the objection of affectation and conceit. The ftory of a poem, whatever may be imagined, is the least effential part of it; the force of the verfification, the vivacity of the images, the juftness of the defcriptions, the natural play of the paffions, are the chief circumstances which diftinguifh the great poet from the profaic novelift, and give him fo high a rank among the heroes in literature: and I will venture to affirm, that all these advantages, especially the three former, are to be found, in an eminent degree, in the Epigoniad. The author, inspired with the true genius of Greece, and fmit with the most profound veneration for Homer, difdains all frivolous ornaments; and relying entirely on his fublime imagination, and his nervous and harmonious expreffion, has ventured to prefent to his reader the naked beauties of nature, and challenges for his partizans all the admirers of genuine antiquity.

There is one circumftance in which the poet has carried his boldnefs of copying antiquity beyond the practice of many, even judicious moderns. He has drawn his perfonages, not only with all the fimplicity of the Grecian heroes, but also with

fome

fome degree of their roughness, and even of their ferocity. This is a circumstance which a mere modern is apt to find fault with in Homer, and which, perhaps, he will not eafily excufe in his imitator. It is certain, that the ideas of manners are so much changed fince the age of Homer, that though the Iliad was always among the ancients conceived to be a panegric on the Greeks, yet the reader is now almost always on the fide of the Trojans, and is much more interested for the humane and foft manners of Priam, Hector, Andromache, Sarpedon, Æneas, Glaucus, nay, even of Paris and Helen, than for the fevere and cruel bravery of Achilles, Agamemnon, and the other Grecian heroes. Senfible of this inconvenience, Fenelon, in his elegant romance, has foftened extremely the harsh manners of the heroic ages, and has contented himself with retaining that amiable fimplicity by which these ages were distinguished. If the reader be displeased, that the British poet has not followed the example of the French writer, he must, at leaft, allow, that he has drawn a more exact and faithful copy of antiquity, and has made fewer facrifices of truth to ornament.

There is another circumftance of our author's choice, which will be liable to difpute. It may be thought, that by introducing the heroes of Homer, he has loft all the charms of novelty, and leads us into fictions, which are fomewhat ftale and threadbare. Boileau, the greateft critic of the French nation, was of a very different opinion:

La fable offre à l'efprit mille agrémens divers
Là tous les noms heureux femblent nés pour les vers:
Ulyffe, Agamemnon, Orefte, Idomenée,
Helene, Menelas, Paris, Hector, Enée.

It is certain, that there is in that poetic ground a kind of enchantment, which allures every perfon of a tender and lively imagination: nor is this impreffion diminished, but rather much increased, by our early introduction to the knowledge of it in our perufal of the Greek and Latin claffics.

The fame great French critic makes the apology of our poet in his ufe of the ancient mythology:

Ainfi dans cet amas de nobles fictions,
Le poete s'egaye en mille inventions,

Orne, eleve, embellit, agrandit toutes chofes,
Et trouve fous fa main des fleurs toujours eclofes.

It would feem, indeed, that if the machinery of the heathen gods be not admitted, epic poetry, at least all the marvellous part of it, must be entirely abandoned. The chriftian religion, for many reafons, is unfit for the fabulous ornaments of poetry: the introduction of allegory, after the manner of Voltaire, is liable to many objections; and though a mere hiftorical epic poem, like Leonidas, may have its beauties, it will always be inferia to the force and pathos of tragedy, and must refign to that fpecies of poetry, the precedency which the

former

former compofition has always challenged among the productions of human genius. But with regard to these particulars, the author has himself made a fufficient apology in the judicious and spirited preface which accompanies his poem.

But though our poet has, in general, followed fo fuccessfully the footsteps of Homer, he has, in particular paffages, chofen other ancient poets for his model. His feventh book contains an episode, very artfully inserted, concerning the death of Hercules; where he has plainly had Sophocles in his view, and has ventured to engage in a rivalship with that great master of the tragic scene. If the fublimity of our poet's imagination, and the energy of his ftyle, appear any where confpicuous, it is in this episode, which we shall not fcruple to compare with any poetry in the English language. Nothing can be more pathetic than the complaints of Hercules, when the poison of the centaur's robe begins first to prey upon him.

Sovereign of heaven and earth! whofe boundless fway
The fates of men and mortal things obey!

If c'er delighted from the courts above,
In human form, you fought Alcmena's love;
If fame's unchanging voice to all the earth,
With truth, proclaims you author of my birth;
Whence, from a course of spotlefs glory run,
Successful toils and wreaths of triumph won,
Am I thus wretched? Better, that before
Some monfter fierce had drunk my streaming gore;
Or crush'd by Cacus, foe to Gods and men,
My batter'd brains had itrew'd his rocky den :

Than, from my glorious toils and triumphs past,
To fall fubdu'd by female arts, at last.

O cool my boiling blood, ye winds, that blow
From mountains loaded with eternal fnow,
And crack the icy cliffs: in vain! in vain!
Your rigour cannot quench my raging pain!
For round this heart the furies wave their brands,
And wring my entrails with their burning hands.
Now bending from the fkies, O wife of Jove!
Enjoy the vengeance of thy injur'd love:
For fate, by me, the Thund'ter's guilt atones,
And punifh'd in her fon Alcmena groans.
The object of your hate shall soon expire;
Fix'd on my fhoulders preys a net of fire:
Whom nor the toils nor dangers could fubdue,
By falfe Euryftheus dictated from you;
Nor tyrants lawless, nor the monstrous brood,
Which haunts the defert or infefts the flood,
Nor Greece, nor all the barb'rous climes that lie
Where Phoebus ever points his golden eye;
A woman has o'erthrown! ye Gods! I yield
To female arts, unconquer'd in the field.
My arms-alas! are these the fame that bow'd
Antous, and his giant force fubdu'd?

That dragg'd Nemea's moufter from his den;
And flew the dragon in his native fen?
Alas, alas! their mighty muscles fail,

While pains infernal ev'ry nerve afsail.
Alas, alas! I feel in ftreams of woe
Thefe eyes diffolv'd, before untaught to flow.
Awake my virtue, oft in dangers try'd,
Patient in toils, in deaths unterrify'd :
Roufe to my aid; nor let my labours paft,
With fame atchieved, be blotted by the laft:
Firm and unmov'd, the prefent shock endure,
Once triumph, and for ever relt fecure.

Our poet, though his genius be in many refpects very original, has not difdained to imitate