me back to this philosopher's treatise of Poetry, and to her preface on the Odyffey, for my better inftruction. Now though I am faucy enough to think that one may fometimes differ from Ariftotle without blundering, and though I am fure one may fometimes fall into an error by following him fervilely; yet I own, that to quote any author for what he never said, is a blunder; (but, by the way, to correct an author for what he never faid, is fomewhat worse than a blunder.) My words were thefe : "As there is a greater variety of characters in the Iliad than in any other poem, so "there is of fpeeches. Every thing in it has manners,' as Ariftotle expreffes it; that is, every thing is acted or fpoken: very little paffes in narration." She justly fays, that " Every thing which is acted or spoken, "has not neceffarily manners merely because it is "acted or spoken." Agreed: but I would ask the queftion, whether any thing can have manners which is neither acted nor spoken? If not, then the whole Iliad being almoft spent in fpeech and a&tion, almost every thing in it has manners, fince Homer has been proved before, in a long paragraph of the preface, to have excelled in drawing characters and painting manners, and indeed his whole poem is one continued occafion of thewing this bright part of his talent.

To fpeak fairly, it is impoffible he could read even' the tranflation, and take my sense fo wrong as the re-' prefents it; but I was firft tranflated ignorantly, and then read partially. My expreffion indeed was not ite exact; it should have been, "Every thing has

ners as Aristotle calls them." But fuch a fault

might have been fpared, fince if one was to

look

look with that difpofition fhe difcovers towards me, even on her own excellent writings, one might find fome mistakes which no context can redress; as where she makes Euftathius call Cratifthenes the Phliafian, Callifthenes the Phyfician*. What a triumph might fome flips of this fort have afforded to Homer's, hers, and my enemies, from which fhe was only fcreened by their happy ignorance! How unlucky had it been, when the infulted Mr. de la Motte for omitting a material paflage in the † fpeech of Helen to Hector, Iliad vi. if fome champion for the moderns had by chance understood fo much Greek, as to whisper him, that there was no fuch passage in Homer?

Our concern, zeal, and even jealousy, for our great author's honour were mutual, our endeavours to advance it were equal, and I have as often trembled for it in her hands, as he could in mine. It was one of the many reafons I had to wish the longer life of this Jady, that I must certainly have regained her good opinion, in fpite of all mifreprefenting tranflators whatever. I could not have expected it on any other terins than being approved as great, if not as paffionate, an admirer of Homer as herself. For that was the first condition of her favour and friendship; otherwife not one's taste alone, but one's morality had been corrupted, nor would any man's religion have been fufpected, who did not implicitly believe in an author whose doctrine is fo conformable to Holy Scripture. However, as different people have different ways of expreffing their belief, fome purely by public and general acts of

* Dacier Remarques fur le 4me livre de l'Odyff. p. 476. De la Corruption du Gout.

of worship, others by a reverend fort of reasoning and enquiry about the grounds of it; it is the fame in admiration, fome prove it by exclamations, others by refpect. I have obferved that the loudest huzzas given to a great man in triumph, proceed not from his friends› but the rabble; and as I have fancied it the fame with the rabble of critics, a defire to be diftinguished from them has turned me to the more moderate, and, I hope, more rational method. Though I am a poet, I would not be an enthusiast; and though I am an Englishman, I would not be furiously of a party. I am far from thinking myself that genius, upon whom, at the end of these remarks, Madam Dacier congratulates my country: one capable of," correcting Homer, and "confequently of reforming mankind, and amending "this conftitution." It was not to Great Britain this ought to have been applied, fince our nation has one happiness for which fhe might have preferred it to her own, that, as much as we abound in other miferable mitguided fects, we have at least none of the blafphemers of Homer. We fteadfastly and unanimously believe, both his poem, and our constitution, to be the best that ever human wit invented that the one is not more incapable of amendment than the other; and (old as they both are) we dispise any French or Englifhman whatever, who fhall prefume to retrench, to innovate, or to make the least alteration in either. Far therefore from the genius for which Madam Dacier miftook me, my whole defire is but to preferve the humble character of a faithful translator, and a quiet subject.

CON