Homer, in the beginning of the second book of the Iliad, ufes almost the very words of Mofes, when he says, "Refulgent Fame marched at the head of the troops, and Jove gave majestic brightness to the face of Agamemnon.”

One or two words more upon facrifice, and I have done with the flights of fancy and imagination.

What could have induced the Grecians and Romans to embrace the system of facrifices, and Homer and Virgil to describe it with fuch approbation and exactnefs? Could nature and reason? Indubitably not. For it was reafon and the foft feelings of nature, that prevailed upon Cain and the Egyptians not to use sacrifice, but offerings only, and upon Pythagoras, as described most movingly, Met. XV. 75. to perfuade his difciples against the practice. Nothing could have introduced a ceremony so opposite to nature and reason, and prevail upon two fuch nations as the Grecian and Roman to obferve it fo tenaciously, but tradition and the writings of Mofes,

Mofes, that it was a divine inftitution and

injunction.

The facrifice, which Achilles prescribes for Phœbus, answers exactly to Gen. viii. 21. and Lev.i. 3. 10. requiring it to be TEXEIV of the lambs or goats, the most perfect and without blemish.

When Calchas explains to Achilles the difpleasure of Phoebus, that it was not owing to the neglect of facrifices, but to the want of pity for Cryses and his daughter, he fays what Samuel (1 Sam. xv. 22.) did to Saul," To obey is better than facrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.'

This country may felicitate itfelf upon an original dramatic writer in Shakspeare, if not upon an epic, in Milton, his laft very ingenious and accomplished editor being judge, when he telleth us, "The greater part of Shakspeare's excellence was the product of his own genius. He found the English ftage in a ftate of the utmost rudeness; no effays either in tragedy or comedy had appeared, from which it could be discovered to what degree of delight

either one or other might be carried: neither character nor dialogue were yet understood. Shakspeare may be truly faid to have introduced them both among us; in some of his happier scenes to have carried both to its utmost height."

How far Milton was an original epic poet will appear in our remarks upon his poem.

The Invocation, Proem and Action of an EPIC POEM.

The beginning and opening of an epic poem is named "invocation;" in which the poet either calls upon the muse to tell the subject or propofition, that is, the action, as also the hero, who has the greatest share in it, the time of its commencement, caufe and final iffue; or the poet fpecifies these circumstances in his own perfon: the former mode feems preferable, as being purely poetic, and bespeaking more modeftly and strongly the importance of the subject, and the attention of the reader.

It is one of Ariftotle's rules, which most likely he drew from Homer, that the au

thor

thor of an epic poem fhould feldom or ⚫ever be seen to speak himself, but to throw every thing as much as poffible into the mouths of those who are the principal

characters.

When the poet or historian only relates a fpeech, this is called Oratio Indirecta ; but when the agent speaks in his own perfon, this is called Oratio Directa. The frequent ufe of the Oratio Directa is that which gives life and vigour to history and epic poetry.

Homer doth not fay, "I fing," but defires the mufe to fing, the anger, or rather the mad paffion, of Achilles, that anger which was vexatious to himself as well as productive of numberlefs ills to the Grecians and Trojans.

Milton in like manner invokes his mufe to fing the disobedience of the first man in eating the forbidden fruit, which introduced evil into the world, and occafioned his expulfion out of Paradise.

Ovid opens the Metamorphofis, which may be called a philofophical poem, on

the

the matter and forms of things, in his own perfon,

In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas
Corpora

My defign is to treat of substances and their forms:

And then intreats the mufe to aid him in his attempts

Di cæptis afpirate meis.

Virgil does the fame in both his poems, the Georgics and Æneid.

Homer and Milton expressly name the subject and hero of their poems; but Virgil without any invocation speaks paraphraftically, or with a periphrafis of the action and the hero, "I fing the arms and man, who"

Here the action and hero are spoken of in fuch obfcure terms, that to this day critics are not agreed on the action of the Æneid, whether it be piety, the fettlement in Italy, a plan of civil government, or what.

Dryden fays of Taffo, that he has split his hero in two, giving Godfrey piety, and Reynaldo