actions, but slumbers in the fulsomeness of perpetual panegyric. If we would examine thoroughly the character of the latter, the mind must be ever at work. There is much to praise, and much to condemn, through a variety of good and bad circumstances; we must pick our nice way. His wellplaced affection, his warm friendship, will create love; his revenge odium, and his cruelty abhorrence. Doubts will arise, and inquiry must be made, whether the one is more to be approved, or the other more to be avoided. Thus are we kept for ever on the watch if our vigilance be for a moment abated, we have passed over some leading feature in the character of the hero, or lost the recital of some circumstance, by which we might determine whether the virtues or the vices of Achilles preponderate. When Ulysses comes forward, the mind is already prepared, and knows what to expect: he is either the πολύμητις διος Οδυσσευς, the wise and divine Ulyse ses, or the θεοις εναλίγκιος αυδην, Ulysses godlike in voice.-But upon the appearance of Achilles, we are uncertain whether he has broken his resolution of not going out to battle, or whether he is meditating the destruction of the Trojan bulwark. The meeting between Achilles and Hector, which is terminated by the death of the latter, is replete with variety sufficient to arrest the attention of every one, and ornament sufficient to please every attention it engages. That defiance which each hurls at the other, marks the bravery of both; and when the latter falls, the prowess of the former is confirmed. The scene now alters. In his speech over the dead body of Hector, Achilles assigns to the gods the honour of his victory-επειδη τονδε ανδρα νεοι δαμασα σθαι εδωκαν, &c. Since now at length the powerful will of Heaven The dire destroyer to our arm has given.-POPE, Xxii. 275. Yet this generosity cannot deprecate our abhorrence of the cruelty which follows. Hector is dragged at the wheels of his conqueror's chariot His hair is clotted, and that countenance, heretofore so beautiful, is all polluted in the dust.' Now lost is all that formidable air; The face divine, the long descending hair, This is done amid the lamentations of the Trojans, and it may be presumed the silent acquiescence of the Greeks. Yet the distress of this scene is still to be heightened. Who can bear the appearance and voice of the old king Priam, without heaping curses upon the author of his distress ?λισσομαι ανερα τουτον ατασθαλον οβριμοεργον, &c. I, only I, will issue from your walls, (Guide or companion, friends, I ask ye none) POPE, xxii. 531. The remaining reasons why the Odyssey is equal,' says the Adventurer, if not superior to the Iliad, and why more peculiarly proper for the perusal of youth, are because the great variety of events and scenes it contains, interest and engage the attention more than the Iliad ; because characters and images drawn from familiar life are more useful to the generality of readers, and are also more difficult to be drawn; and because the conduct of this poem (considered as the most perfect of epopees) is more artful and judicious than that of the other.' The first of these remaining reasons, namely, that the Odyssey must interest and engage the attention more 6 than the Iliad, I fear is a declaration which will go near to overturn what is advanced in the beginning of the critique, that unexperienced minds, too easily captivated with the fire and fury of a gallant general, are apt to prefer courage to constancy, and firmness to humanity.' The difficulty of drawing a character is perhaps no where so happily surmounted as in the 2d book of the Iliad, wherein he gives an account of Thersites. Φολκος εην, χωλος δ' έτερον πόδα, τω δε οι ώμοι This may perhaps be called rather a description of his person than a delineation of his character. Yet, if with this description we take in the few preceding lines, the art of the poet has left us ignorant of nothing which is passing in the mind of Thersites. Providence has been kindly parsimonious in the production of such objects, yet they have come within the notice of most people. The conduct of the Odyssey may be more reducible to rule, but the Iliad abounds with the sublimer beauties. Whoever is acquainted with the Ajax and Philoctetes of Sophocles, and the contention between Ajax and Ulysses of Ovid, will be convinced that Homer's character of Ulysses is drawn to an excess con amore, and that of Achilles with fidelity. On the one hand, he will observe the flattering fondness of the painter; on the other, he will approve the inflexible veracity of the historian. MONRO.> N° 3. SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1787. Arcades ambo.- Ving. Slaves at Athens, who had been guilty of theft, were, in order to publish their disgrace and infamy, branded in the forehead with two letters, and were thence called ypapuatou or literati. When I acknowledge my obligations to two distinguished literati, whose letters will compose the substance of this paper, my classical readers against supposing that I use the word in its original Athenian sense. · TO THE AUTHOR OF THE OLLA PODRIDA. London, March, 1787. • The familiarity with which I address you, will, I think, be sufficiently justified, when I inform you, that I am an author as well as yourself. Our lines of business differ, indeed. Your care seems to be in endeavouring to entertain your readers with productions of the lighter cast, while I am engaged in graver duties; troublesome, indeed, to myself, but of the utmost importance to mankind. You must know, I am the mouth from which many of our pastors and instructors deliver their oracles. In short, my office is to write sermons for young divines ; which (such is my zeal for religion) I distribute at threepence each, or 2s. 9d. per dozen. After the expenses of printing, &c. are defrayed, my gains, as you may suppose, are very small. Yet, small as they are, Sir, I am satisfied, while my conscience, without flattering, tells me I have deserved, if not obtained, a reputation. One of my sermons (it was printed in a type which might be mistaken for handwriting, price only 1s.) procured the purchaser of it a lectureship in the Borough: to be sure, the gentleman had a main good voice, which he did not possess for nothing. But what is the sage without the goose ? • Another gentleman, a doctor, who wrote rather grave sermons, being much smitten with a young lady, who objected to him on account of his gravity, applied to me for a sermon suited to his circumstances. I took his case into consideration, and provided him with a discourse so lively, that he carried off the lady in triumph in less than three weeks. Nobody slept; the people were very attentive, and stared a good deal. • While I was busy in composing this sermon, a few evenings ago, for the doctor, three young divines, my customers, rapped at my door. Compliments having been on each side paid and received, they were seated. When I informed them of the business I was engaged in, from what reason I know not, I found in all of them a promptitude to laughter, which was irksome to me; but as every now and then some observation was made, which was the specious cause of their merriment, I was unwilling to suppose they meant a direct insult: but at last, I had too manifest a proof of their intentions to deride me. My candle wanted snuffing : the snuffers were not to be found. I have no bell in my room, but am accustomed to summon my landlady, who lives under me, by the stamp of my foot. I now gave the young rogues occasion to banter me. One told me, Í reminded him of Pompey the Great, who declared before the senate, that he could raise legions by the motion of his foot; but that I was superior, in performing what Pompey found he could not. Another drily congratulated me upon the acquisition of a |